


Worlds Apart

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: College AU, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Law School AU, Oral Sex, Pride and Prejudice like plot, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-20 06:36:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 51,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2418671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meg Masters has a scholarship for studying in one of the most prestigious Law Schools in the country, and she had to earn that, unlike that arrogant, rich asshole of Castiel Novak. It’s safe to say that from the first time they met, it was hate at first sight and they both agree they’re never going to get along… now, if only they could agree to keep their hands off each other as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hate At First Sight

Meg had a knack for deciding what person would be welcomed into in her life within the first two minutes of knowing them. The first day at Landbrooke, for example, her best friend ran into her, looking every bit like a puppy that had lost his master.

“Excuse me, sorry,” he kept saying. It was obvious that despite his impressive height and his good looks, people had been ignoring him all day. Meg took pity on him and decided to pay attention. “I’m looking for the B wing?”

“Oh, you got the same wing as I did,” Meg said. The boy let out a relieved sigh.

“Thank you! Can you tell me where it is?”

“No idea,” Meg smiled. “I’m looking for it too.”

And that’s how she ended up searching the campus for said wing in the company of Sam Winchester (She tried calling him ‘Sammy’, but he said only his brother did that). She decided she liked him way before they gave up and decided to sit down for a coffee to celebrate.

“So why Landbrooke?” Meg asked, interested. It wasn’t one of the most accessible Law Schools in the country, and Sam, like her, was there on a scholarship they both agreed had been a pain in the ass to get.

“Well, it was either this or Stanford,” Sam said, with a little shrug. “This was closer to home.”

It was amusing the way he said it, so off-handedly. Like he didn’t _mean_ to brag, but wanted to and wasn’t sure how. Meg got the feeling he wasn’t used to compliments, so she paid him one.

“You must be awfully smart.”

“I, uh… nah, you know, I just study hard,” Sam said, looking down and blushing a little bit. “I want to be a lawyer.”

“I get that from the fact you came to a Law School,” Meg pointed out. Sam giggled, uncomfortable.

“Nah, I mean… it’s what I really want to do with my life,” he explained. “I can’t picture myself doing anything else. You understand what I’m saying?”

Meg nodded. She knew exactly what he meant. It was her calling, too.

That’s why she couldn’t help giving sideway glances to all the legacies she had to share her vital space with during classes.

Like that Novak guy, for example. He stumbled in late during the first class of Contracts, with a two-day stubble and his dark hair pointing in every direction, like he couldn’t be bothered to comb it when he woke up. Professor Fergus Crowley glared at him while the guy sat down on the front row and blinked behind his thick frame glasses. The light was clearly too bright for him.

Meg and Sam exchanged exasperated looks. They had both heard horror stories about the parties the fraternities threw on Landbrooke, but Sam believed they wouldn’t do it on the first freaking night. Meg had been less optimistic, and alas, here came this hungover idiot to prove her right.

“It’s wonderful to see some of you are already forgetting the many convenient uses of alarm clocks. Makes you feel like the semester has officially begun,” Professor Crowley commented in his trademark Scottish accent and the class chuckled.

Meg couldn’t see him from where she was sitting, but she would’ve bet her scholarship than when the guy straightened his shoulders and moved his body a little to face in Crowley’s direction, he was showing him a greasy smile.

“I’m sorry, Professor,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear him. “I stayed late last night talking to my father. He wishes you well, by the way.”

God, what a prick. And the worst part was the way Crowley’s attitude gave a complete turnover.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name?” he said, all soft and obliging.

“Castiel Novak,” the jerk introduced himself and extended a hand to shake Crowley’s.

“Ah, yes, Mr. Novak,” Crowley said, with a smile so serving it made Meg want to kick him in the teeth. “I remember having both your older brothers in my class. I expect you’ll be as brilliant as them.”

“I’ll certainly try, sir,” Novak replied.

Meg rolled her eyes so hard they could have easily got stuck in the back of her skull.

“Did you hear the way he boasted about his name?” she told Sam later, while they were leaving the classroom. “Like it was a freaking get-out-of-jail-free card? Jerk!”

“Meg, you haven’t even met him,” Sam pointed out.

“I don’t have to,” Meg replied raising a finger to stop all possible objections Sam could have. “That little stunt right there tells me everything there’s to know. And I want nothing to do with him whatsoever.”

“Well,” Sam laughed at how irritated Meg was. “I don’t think you’ll have problems with that.”

Meg would later look back on that conversation and marvel at how utterly wrong he was.

 

* * *

 

Professor Naomi Moore was tall and severe. She taught Criminal Law 100, and to Meg’s delight, she was utterly unimpressed by anyone’s last name.

“Sit down, Castiel,” she told Castiel with a glare so cold it was amazing the temperature of the classroom didn’t drop to below freezing. “If you arrive late to my class again, you are welcome to wait outside.”

Castiel sat only two seats away from them, so Meg could revel in his guilty and crestfallen expression.

“Now, as I was telling you before we were so rudely interrupted,” Professor Moore continued as she passed around some pamphlets. “The mock trails program is designed to get you to showcase and develop your oral advocacy skills. It’s a way for you to learn how to perform in an actual court environment. And since I’ll be the judge, it also gives you an incentive to study long and hard enough so I won’t declare a mistrial on basis of your ignorance alone.”

Sam threw a pleading look at Meg. “It could be fun!” he mouthed.

“Don’t think even about it,” Meg whispered back, and immediately shut and looked down when she realized Professor Moore had seen them.

Sam waited until the end of the class to insist.

“Please, Meg!” he said as Meg picked up her stuff. There was a line already in front of Moore’s desk.

“Sam, it’s not barely the end of the first week and we’re already swamped with things to do,” Meg said, matter-of-factly. “We don’t have time to put fictional characters on trial.”

“Look, Novak’s signed up!”

Meg was actually surprised to see Castiel writing down his name before exiting the classroom. She was convinced he’d want nothing to do with any extra-curricular activities.

“Yeah, you realize that’s going to do the exact opposite of persuading me?” Meg asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Don’t leave me alone with all the legacies and the frat-boys,” Sam begged. “They might bite me and turn me into one of them!”

“I’ll shoot you in the head before that happens,” Meg promised.

Sam let his mouth hang open while he twisted his arms in a grotesque gesture.

“Giiiiirlsss…” he said in a hollow voice, drooling a little for added effect. “Boooooze…”

“That is disgusting, Sam Winchester,” Meg replied, shaking her head in disapproval. “I hope you realize that is the most revolting manner of emotional blackmail.”

“Is it working, though?” Sam asked, innocently. Meg had never in her life met someone with more convincing puppy eyes.

 

* * *

 

In the end, Meg signed up out of solidarity and made sure Sam noted he owed her a big favor for sacrificing her Saturday mornings. So while her roommate (a girl called Ruby that had exchanged a grand total of fifteen words with her) snored peacefully in her bed, Meg was already up and deciding what she should wear. Despite all her complaints, she realized this was a chance to make a good impression in Professor Moore, mainly because both Meg and Sam were planning to specialize in Criminal Law.

There was a knock on the door, and Meg hurriedly buttoned up the white blouse she had chosen and applied some lip gloss. Ruby emerged from the nest of covers and blankets she had buried herself in.

“Coming,” she yawned.

“Wait, Ruby, it’s for me,” Meg groaned, while she tied up her uncooperative hair in a ponytail. Ruby, apparently unaware she was just wearing an old tank top and white panties, opened the door anyway.

“Uh, oh… hello,” Sam said, taken aback.

“Well… hello,” Ruby replied, leaning against the doorframe and flipping back her long dark hair. Meg caught a glimpse of her wicked smile while she pushed her aside with a rush goodbye.

“That your roommate?” Sam asked. He was still a little red in the face while Meg dragged him away towards the classroom in which the mock trails would be taking place.

“It’s a bad idea, Sam,” Meg replied, simply. “First thing she told me when I met her was that we should establish some sort of signal so we wouldn’t barge in on the other having sex.”

“Sounds like she’s a riot,” he shook his head as they walked inside. “No, that’s not the kind of girl I would go for anyhow…”

Sam’s voice trailed off. Meg was about to ask him to complete the idea, but then she saw it too: standing in front of the desk of the professor, there was a pretty blonde girl. She was laughing (and Meg had to admire her ability to laugh under Professor Moore’s eternal frown) and Meg understood by Sam’s hypnotized stare that that was the kind of girl he would go for.

In any case, Meg didn’t have time to poke fun at him for it, because then she noticed there was somebody else with the professor and Sam’s dream girl. Meg grimaced as they walked closer: Novak.

“You can’t just keep up that behavior, Castiel,” Professor Moore was saying. “What would your father say…?”

“He doesn’t say much of anything,” Castiel replied. He was sprawled all over two seats on the second row, with his feet up on the back of the chair in front of him. “You know that.”

“Oh, don’t be so hard on him, auntie,” Sam’s dream girl said, walking towards Castiel and making the white dress she was wearing undulate around her legs. “I bet he’s learned from his mistakes already.”

Professor Moore didn’t look like she believed it, but then she saw Meg and Sam approaching them and simply huffed in frustration.

“Hello,” the blonde girl greeted them with a smile. “You’re here early.”

“Yes, we got the impression Professor Moore didn’t like unpunctual people.”

Meg said it in the most guileless of tones, but Castiel must have understood it was a jabbed at him, because he put his feet down and scowled at her. Meg blatantly ignored him.

“Well, you got that right,” Sam’s dream girl laughed. “I’m Jess.”

“Meg,” she introduced herself. “And these five feet of pure muscle here is called Sam.”

“Uh, oh… hi,” Sam extended a hand towards the girl as soon as he got Meg was talking about him. “You, uh… you… for the mock trials…?” he stammered.

Meg cringed on his behalf. That was pathetic.

Jess managed to keep up her polite expression anyway. “Nope, just here visiting Aunt Naomi,” she said. “And now I should be going.”

She kissed her aunt on the cheek, fist-bumped Castiel and made her exit just as another pair of students entered the classroom.

“Nice… nice to meet you!” Sam said.

Meg thought Jess was already too far away to hear, but shockingly the blonde turned around with one last smile before disappearing. Interesting. So Sam wasn’t the only one that had been start-struck.

“What?” Sam asked when he turned towards Meg, but she simply smirked knowingly.

Professor Moore didn’t find it quite as cute, because she shot one of those looks that could freeze Hell itself in Sam’s direction and simply said: “Let’s begin.”

 

* * *

 

The first twelve students to arrive were draft for jury duty, which meant they would have to analyze the performance of the three students who got selected to play the DA and the defense. The parts would have a week to prepare their cases, they would present them to the jury the following session, with pleas and witnesses and all. Everything would work just like they would in a real courtroom.

Well, except because in a real courtroom no one would put on trial Red Riding Hood’s mother and grandmother for child neglect.

Meg and Sam sat side by side in the “jury stand” and watched the pretended DA painfully stumble and stutter through his notes in the saddest case of stage fright Meg had witnessed since that time Barry Cook almost puked during the Christmas play in third grade. He was inconsistent and hesitant, and the defense (two girls called Pamela and Anna who were out for blood) used every opportunity they had to point out the DA was so nervous because he really had no case at all against their clients.

“Well, they weren’t wrong,” Sam said once the attorneys left the classroom so the jury could deliberate. “I believe the DA’s approach towards the case was feeble, at best.”

“Care to elaborate, Winchester?” Professor Moore asked.

“Well, the defense presented evidence that the Grandmother was too sick to get out of bed in first place,” Sam pointed out. “She was also a victim, because she couldn’t defend herself against the wolf. I think we should find her not guilty. She shouldn’t even have been indicted in the first place.”

“Well-reasoned,” Professor Moore nodded. “And as for the Mother?”

“Guilty, obviously,” said a gravelly voice from the row behind them.

Meg felt physically nauseated as everyone turned their attention towards Novak. He smiled at his classmates like he knew something they didn’t, basking in the semi-indignant reaction he was obviously aiming for.

“And why is that, Castiel?” Professor Moore inquired.

“She sent her daughter into dangerous territory all by herself, carrying a basket of expensive goods, fully knowing this would likely make her a target of criminal activity,” Castiel exposed. “She endangered her own child and a put a burden on her she shouldn’t have had to carry. I believe she is unfit to continue to raise her daughter and her parental rights should be removed.”

“That is not what we are judging here,” Professor Moore said. “But do you do make a compelling argument… yes, uh…” Professor Moore checked the list in front of her when Meg raised her hand. “Masters?”

“I’m sorry, but I disagree,” Meg said. “Jury number 8 might be making a compelling argument, but that was the DA’s job, and I don’t believe he has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that Red’s mother knew there’d be any risk for her daughter.”

“So you think she was right on sending her daughter alone?” Professor Naomi asked.

“What is right and wrong is not into question,” Meg argued. “The DA has left out a lot of factors that played into the Mother’s decision, as the defense has pointed out: the socioeconomic circumstances of the family, the fact that the girl had done that same journey many times before. The Mother had no reason to think it would be any different this time around…”

“So we should excuse her because she was too busy to visit her own sick mother?” Castiel interrupted her.

Meg bristled. “If by ‘too busy’ you mean ‘being unable to abandon her workplace because she is a single parent and the household’s breadwinner…’”

“This isn’t about politics,” Novak replied, but he was obviously starting to get angry as well, judging by his clench fist and the fact his grin had become tense.

“Of course it’s about politics!” Meg shouted. “If this girl had come from a typical two-parent family, we would be judging the criminal that tried to kill her instead of the mother…”

“The criminal that tried to kill her was _a wolf_ ,” Castiel replied, his face going red. “As irrational as Jury Number 5 is being right now.”

Meg had never longed to punch someone in the face this much. “And Jury Number 8 needs to pull his head out of his own ass for two seconds…”

Professor Moore hit the desk with her gavel. “No personal attacks!” she said, but it was too late.

“Jury Number 5 needs to put her emotions aside so deliberation can follow its course,” Castiel declared.

“Jury Number 8 is trying to push his own limited and bigoted views unto the rest of the jury,” Meg stated.

“By all means, illuminate me in which aspect I’m wrong,” Castiel invited her. When Meg opened his mouth to begin doing just that, Castiel yawned ostensibly and added in a wry tone: “No, wait. I don’t care.”

The only reason Novak escaped with his face intact was because Sam was able to hold Meg back by her jacket.


	2. Technicalities

“And did you see his shit-eating grin?” Meg shouted, as she wringed a paper napkin between her fingers, probably imagining it was Castiel’s neck. “What a self-serving asshole!”

Sam sighed deeply and continued to type in his computer as Meg ranted against Novak.

Ever since the Red Riding Hood trial, the mock trials had become a nightmare, not just for him (who had to hang out with Meg and hear her endless complaints about what an obtuse ass Castiel was), but for everyone involved: Meg and Castiel missed no chance to bicker and tease each other, and even though Castiel was a pretty chill guy and Meg’s weapon of choice were sarcastic remarks, they often ended up shouting abuse from different sides of the room and ignoring Professor Moore’s call for attention. She had threatened several times to have them thrown out of the “court”, but to no avail.

Sam couldn’t say in all honesty he shared Meg’s aversion for Castiel, but he still had shivered when they had been selected to be the defense against Castiel as the DA. He saw in the charged look they had exchange that this would be the chance they had been waiting for to freely go at each other’s throat. In Sam’s opinion, they were both equally immature. It was just a mock trial, dammit.

And so that Tuesday, Sam and Meg were sitting in their favorite café, supposedly to prepare their case, but it’d been two hours and all Meg had done was to point out what a despicable human being their opponent was.

“We have to win this, Sam!” she declared, with fire in her eyes. “We have to win at any cost.”

“Meg, you already won,” Sam reminded her, uselessly. “Everyone agreed with you. Red’s mother was acquitted.”

“Yes, but I don’t think he felt it as a defeat,” Meg replied, tearing apart the napkin. “We need to humiliate him!”

“Well, that’s going to be a tough one,” Sam said. “Our ‘client’ is practically indefensible.”

“There’s no one indefensible,” Meg replied, very sure of herself. “Who’s our client again?”

“Uh… Snow White’s Evil Queen.”

Meg blinked a couple of times, and Sam could physically see her confidence abandoning her.

“You’re kidding,” she said, and when Sam shrugged she hit her forehead with an open palm. “How are we going to defend someone with the word ‘evil’ in their name?”

“You tell me,” Sam replied. “I got nothing.”

Meg tapped her fingers on the table for several seconds. Sam was about to suggest they should just make a deal with Castiel (even though he knew that would get him nothing but a plastic cup of coffee thrown at him) when Meg spoke again:

“Okay, I have an idea,” she said. “But it’s kind of a long shot.”

 

* * *

 

‘Long shot’ was actually a nice way to put it. Sam had argued ‘desperate’ was a better description, but he’d gone quiet when Meg asked him if he could come up with anything better. They gathered all the information and Meg had practically growled at him when he suggested he should be the one doing the talking.

So next Saturday Sam was watching Meg furiously arrange all her notes when Castiel walked in, with his usual air of dignified indifference for the world around him, and stopped near their table.

“Counselors,” he greeted them.

“Hello, Castiel,” Sam answered. Meg kept looking at her notes like nothing but a breeze had passed next to them, so Sam subtly kicked her in the shin.

“Hi,” she groaned, still not looking at Castiel.

“Masters, this feud between us is ridiculous,” Castiel said, in a seriousness that seemed unusual in his face. “I think it’s time we bury the hatchet.”

Meg slowly turned her head towards him, and Sam started begging to all the gods he knew about that she would take the peace offer.

“Of course, Novak,” she said. “As long as you admit that I was right.”

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Castiel said, his polite smile becoming tense. “Because you see, that would be the same as admitting I was wrong. Which I wasn’t.”

Sam threw his hands in the air and decided to become an atheist.

“Then we have nothing to talk about,” Meg said, sticking her nose in the air.

“Fine,” Castiel groaned and moved on to his own table just as the jury and Professor Moore took their places.

She read the charges against the Evil Queen.

“How does the defendant plead?” she asked. There was resignation on her voice. She must have known there was a storm coming. And she wasn’t wrong.

“Not guilty for reasons of insanity or mental defect,” Meg declared.

“Motion to dismiss,” Castiel said immediately. “The defendant purposely prepared a lethal poison, disguised herself, stalked the victim and manipulated her into eating it.”

“Your Honor, we can prove our client has been fighting against visual and auditory hallucinations for most of her life…” Meg retorted.

“Oh, yes, the mirror told her to do it,” Castiel interrupted her with a wryly smile. “The People have a witness willing to testify this was not the first time the defendant threatened the victim’s life.”

“Your witness is a convicted felon for animal cruelty who made a deal in exchange for their testimony,” Meg said, in a slightly louder than necessary tone.

“He used to be employed by the defendant,” Castiel replied, also starting to raise his voice. “He knows the inner workings of the household. He can testify how the defendant abused the victim for years before driving her away from her own home, how she was fixated on her…”

“A fixation that comes from a mental disorder our client cannot control,” Meg was at the edge of screaming now. “The Defense is ready to provide the testimony of experts psychiatrists…”

“Expert opinions bought with the defendant’s money…!” Castiel shouted.

“Well, everybody seems to be entitled to their wrong opinions nowadays!” Meg yelled back.

“Oh, my God, just make out already!”

Sam wouldn’t have realized he’d said it out loud if it wasn’t for the sudden silence that fell in the room, and the murderous look Meg shot in his direction. Castiel’s face was practically violet and Sam had to wonder if he was still breathing.

Then all the members of the jury burst out clapping and whistling.

 

* * *

 

So that had been that.

“You’re gonna have to talk to me eventually,” Sam said. “We’re in a lot of projects together, you know.”

Meg kept eating her sandwich, pretending not to hear a thing. Sam clenched his jaw and rolled his eyes, but if this was a biggest bitch contest, Meg knew she was going to win.

“Fine,” Sam said, giving up. “I’m sorry I humiliated you in front of everybody.”

“And Novak,” Meg added.

“Yes, and Novak,” Sam accepted. “But you gotta admit it, you were both being irrational… don’t walk away from me!”

Too late. Meg made a ball with the wrapping of her sandwich and threw it over her shoulder in Sam’s general direction. If it hit him, it would leave crumbs all over his hair. If it didn’t, Sam would feel obliged to get up, pick it up and find the nearest trash can. Either way, it would cause him just a fraction of the irritation Meg felt.

Despite having to give Sam the silent treatment, she was having a pretty decent Sunday. That was, until she turned around the corner and found Castiel standing about with his hands on his pockets near her dorm.

“What do you want?” Meg asked, tiredly. She was really not in the mood to pick up a fight, but she would if she had to.

“Professor Moore has informed me that since our last confrontation ended in such an uncomfortable and unprofessional note, she is calling for a retrial,” Castiel informed, with that deadpan expression. “She expects, and I quote, that we can behave ourselves this time around or else be expelled from the workshop.”

“Ugh,” Meg complained.

“For once, we agree,” Castiel said. He was obviously as tired as the whole thing as Meg. “I think I should propose a truce again.”

“I’ll get off your back if you get off mine,” Meg promised. It was really the best she could do. She’d just try to keep and his cold snarkiness, his holier-than-thou attitude and his super intense blue eyes as far away from her as possible.

“Fair enough,” Castiel nodded. “Although, I admit I will miss our debates. Your passion is admirable.”

Meg raised an eyebrow. “Why, thanks…”

“Even though you’re so often wrong.”

Of course.

“Listen, you idiot,” she said, planting herself in front of him. “We’re studying to be fucking lawyers. There’s no absolute right or wrong anymore. You need to look at all the facts before making a rush judgment.”

“I strongly disagree,” Castiel said, and though his expression didn’t vary in the least, his eyes lit up with fury. “The law isn’t a playground for you to perform a logical exercise or win an argument.”

“You think that’s why I’m here?” Meg asked, exasperated, taking another step in his direction. They were so close now she could count the cracks in his chapped lips. “To win an argument?”

“Well, that seems to be the only force driving you.”

“I’ll show you about the force driving me!”

Meg wasn’t sure what happened next. She knew, logically, that she had grabbed Castiel by the lapels of his shirt, and she knew she’d pulled him down with every intention to rip his pretty blue eyes out. Instead, she had crashed her mouth against him, and was now biting and sucking Novak’s bottom lip with such enthusiasm she knew it’d be swollen the following day.

When she came to it, she broke away and looked around the hallway. They were the only ones there. Thank God.

Castiel didn’t seem to care about that. He pushed her against the closed door of her dorm, and now it was him who was ravaging her mouth, viciously tangling his fingers in her hair and pressing his body against hers with such force that Meg was having trouble breathing and thinking.

In fact, the only coherent thought that crossed her mind was how much she wanted to take this “argument” somewhere private.

“I still… I still think you’re insufferable,” she panted, when Castiel backed away a little, but not enough to leave Meg some resemblance of personal space.

“I still think you are intolerably stubborn,” Castiel replied.

“Glad we got that out of the way,” Meg said, and opened the door. Castiel followed her inside without a second hesitation.

 

* * *

 

Meg was no virgin, but the way Castiel grabbed her so tight was definitely new. His hands were ruthless and his mouth fierce, making her blush and pant. He took off her shirt so fast and carelessly Meg thought she heard the fabric ripping a little, and then held her so close Meg couldn’t help to let out a little yelp.

“Too harsh?” Castiel asked. And maybe they were still in the middle of a battle of wills, because like hell Meg was going to let him treat her like she was breakable, delicate little doll.

“No,” she replied, and pushed him down to the bed.

They struggled to get clothes and covers out of the way, exchanging aggressive kisses on the neck and scrapes on their arms and backs. Castiel’s chest was rumbling with half suppressed moans and groans and when Meg slid a hand to palm his erection over the boxers, some resemblance of clarity came back to her.

“Wait…” she breathed. Castiel stopped biting her shoulder and sat back on the bed, with an interrogating look on his face.

And Meg realized this would be the moment to push him out of the bedroom, to tell him this was a big mistake, that they didn’t even like each other, dammit. It’d be terrible awkward, but maybe the next time they were forced to interact, they’d be too embarrassed to start fighting. And wouldn’t that solve a lot of issues? It was the logical thing to do.

What she did instead was walking up to Ruby’s night stand and open the drawer.

“Are you stealing condoms from your roommate?” Castiel asked, partly amused.

“Well, like it's not like I was planning this,” Meg said, as she extended it along his erection. Incredible. Even when they were about to have sex he managed to irk her.

Castiel must have perceive this wouldn’t go on if he didn’t put his mouth to better use, so he shrugged and started peppering kisses along Meg’s jawline and collar bone, slowly caressing her inner thigh. Meg tried to touch him as well, but Castiel intertwined his fingers with hers and immobilize both her hands over her head. Then, he backed away a bit, and with a look that sent shivers down Meg’s spine, he spun her around and pinned her down, her stomach against on the mattress.

“No… that is not happening,” she protested when she felt Castiel breathing on the back of her neck.

“This would be so much easier if you trusted I won’t do anything you don’t want,” Castiel huffed.

She began another protest, but then he pinched her nipples with one hand while he put the other around her waist and raised her hips until Meg was on all fours. It should have been humiliating or degrading, but she only felt turned on. None of the people she had slept with had been so assertive, none of them had been so clear about what they wanted. She’d always felt it was up to her to make them enjoy it, to keep them interested and it had always been so _exhausting_.

She didn’t have that problem with Castiel. As he got inside of her, as he muttered unintelligible things in her ear and the obscene sound of their heated skins clashing against each other invaded the room, Meg had never felt so _wanted_ before.

 

* * *

 

“This was a bad idea.”

Meg wasn’t aware she’d said it out loud until Castiel sat down on the bed and threw a dozy look at her. She was actually surprised he was still there. She was prepared to watch him get up and leave without saying a word when they were done, but instead he had lain by her side for several minutes, breathing heavily, with his fingertips still grazing Meg’s hip. Neither of them had said a word until Meg had stated the obvious.

“I’m sorry, was that not… satisfactory to you?” Castiel asked.

“That’s not what I meant,” she groaned, as she stood up and started to pick her clothes from the floor.

“So it was satisfactory?” he insisted. Meg threw his shirt at his face.

“No, what I meant is that I hate you,” she clarified, as she pulled her pants as with a little more force than it was necessary. “You’re a prick who somehow manages to step into every single one of my nerves. And I know you’re not particularly fond of me either.”

“Oh, I get it,” said Castiel, fishing his glasses from the night-stand where he left them. “What you’re saying is, because of our personal differences, we wouldn’t make a good match, relationship-wise, and you’d prefer this not to happen again.”

“Yes! Thank you!” Meg sighed. “Also, I would really appreciate it if you didn’t tell anybody about it.”

“With ‘anybody’, you mean your friend Sam,” Castiel guessed.

“I mean Sam specifically, yes,” Meg admitted. He was taking this better than she thought. Maybe he wasn’t so immature after all. “I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Alright,” Castiel finished dressing up, and stood in front of Meg with that little self-congratulatory smirk that made her want to break his jaw. “I will accept that under one condition.”

Meg rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. “What?”

“Tell me: was it or was it not satisfactory?”

 

* * *

 

Castiel practically crashed against the wall when Meg pushed him out of the room and then slammed the door behind him.

“Uh, Meg,” he knocked. “I left my shoes in there.”

Meg opened up again and Castiel ducked just in time to avoid the shoes hitting him in the face. He was fast enough to put a foot in the frame before she could close it again.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he reminded her.

For a second, he was sure he’d pushed his luck too far and Meg was really going to break his toes by simply closing the door on them.

“Fine!” she said in the end. “It was good! It was the best fuck I’ve had in a while! That what you wanted to hear? Now, go gloat somewhere else!”

Castiel stepped back just in time to get out of the way of the second slam. He smiled to himself, and started putting on his shoes, when he noticed there was someone standing at the end of the hallway. He didn’t have to look to know who it was: there was only one person that tall in all college.

“ _Technically_ , I didn’t tell you anything,” Castiel pointed out.

Sam stared at him with a traumatize expression, and then turned around to leave.


	3. Insanity Plea

“What?” Meg asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Sam blinked and shook his head while he turned his attention back to his lunch. Ever since Meg had sat by his side in Professor Crowley’s class and acted like nothing had happened, he’d been glancing at her like he suspected she was some sort of cambion or pod person that had replaced his best friend. It was unnerving her.

“What is it, Sam?” she insisted, exasperated. “I’m speaking with you again. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“I’m just… wondering why the sudden change,” Sam said. Meg pitied him: how was he supposed to be a lawyer if he was so bad at lying?

“Well, you were right. The whole thing was ridiculous,” she declared. “I’m over it. Let’s not even mention it anymore.”

“Okay,” Sam agreed. Meg took a big chunk of her sandwich and started chewing while she wondered how long it would take her to find a book Professor Moore had mentioned when Sam spoke again: “How long have you been sleeping with Castiel?”

Meg choked on her food.

“That… that bastard told you?” she asked five minutes later, when she was able to breathe. She immediately realized she had obliterated any chance of plausible deniability with that comment.

“No, I saw him leaving your room,” Sam explained. “And Ruby said she had a condom missing…”

“Woah, you’re talking to Ruby?” Meg asked, scandalized. “Why the hell are you talking to Ruby?”

“I’m not talking to her, she talked at me… don’t change the subject!”·Sam exclaimed and pointed a finger at her. “You were sleeping with him this whole time? I thought you hated him!”

“I do,” Meg clarified. “I can’t stand the asshole.”

“Then what the hell, Meg?” Sam insisted, in a tone so loud several heads towards him.

Well, this conversation obviously wasn’t so private anymore. She stood up, grabbed her friend by the arm (barely giving him time to pick up his stuff) and dragged him to a more discreet corner.

“Okay, yeah, I had sex with him,” she admitted in a hushed tone. “But it was just a weird onetime thing!” she added at Sam’s horrified face.

“How do you even…? Don’t answer that,” Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why?”

“I don’t know, it just happened…”

“Sex doesn’t _just_ happen,” Sam argued. “Especially not with someone you hate.”

“I’m pleading temporary insanity,” Meg shrugged. “Listen, you were right, okay? Maybe we only needed it to get it out of our systems. It’s out now. It won’t be a problem for anybody.”

Sam sighed. “I sure hope so…”

 

* * *

 

In Meg and Castiel’s defense, it had to be said they handled their encounter the following Saturday with a lot of poise. They argued in an acceptable tone of voice, they presented their cases without any name calling and then they patiently waited outside while the jury deliberated without even so much as a glance in each other’s direction. Sam was half expecting them to start shouting as soon as they were out of reach of Professor Moore’s ears, but Meg simply crossed her arms and leaned against the wall while Castiel paced around with his hands in his pocket, not paying attention to either of them.

The jury decided that Meg and Sam’s defense was bogus and found the Evil Queen guilty, with came as a surprise to precisely no one. Sam was the only one who saw the frustration that crossed Meg’s face for fraction of a second. Then she turned around and shook Castiel’s hand with a deadpan expression that perfectly mirrored his. He didn’t even smile or try to boast about his winning.

All in all, they behaved like actual mature people. Sam was surprised.

“I gotta hand it to you,” he commented while Meg bought herself a snack. “I didn’t think you’d ever last that long without shouting at Castiel.”

Meg didn’t take the jab. She was busy getting the vending machine to spit out her chips. She hit with an open palm. Nothing happened, so she hit it a little harder.

“And you took our defeat very well,” Sam added. “Like, I thought you’d be furious, but… uh, Meg?”

Meg had put her arms around the machine, like she intended to hug it. Instead, she grabbed it and started shaking it with as much force as she could (which was a lot, for someone so short.) It rattled, but still refused to do its job.

“Of course I’m not furious!” Meg answered, with a high pitch voice. “Why would I be?” She took a couple of steps backwards and kicked the thing. “Just because we lost to that major… self-righteous… presumptuous…prick!” she screamed, accompanying every word with a kick. “I don’t have any reason to be mad! Not at all! No, sir, not me!”

Sam scurried away, and put his arms up in case Meg decided to direct her abuse against something softer. The vending machine emitted what could only be described as a yelp, and Meg’s chips finally fell down. She ran a hand through her hair to put it back in its place while she sighed, satisfied.

Sam approached her warily. “Better?”

“Much better,” she nodded.

 

* * *

 

That was the last time Sam heard her getting worked-up at Castiel’s antics. Not counting the inevitable eye-roll every time he showed up late for classes, it was like Meg had completely forgotten about his existence. It was a refreshing change for Sam. Castiel and Meg’s dislike for him had monopolized their conversation topics for far too long, so now they could concentrate on other things. Like Sam’s desperate need to grow out of his creepy stalker habits.

“I’m not stalking Jess!” Sam protested, but to no avail.

Meg blew her coffee and raised an eyebrow. They were once again in the little coffee shop right outside of campus they had discovered on their first day. It had quickly become their favorite place to come after classes since it was quiet, it had good Wi-Fi and their cappuccino was so hot it could probably melt away the ice in Professor Moore’s eyes. Which was exactly how Meg liked it now that the days were getting shorter and colder.

“You check her Facebook page fifteen times a day,” she pointed out. “I’m sorry, but that qualifies as stalking in my book.”

“I just… I don’t…” Sam tried to say, but went quiet under Meg’s scrutinizing look. “Well, what should I do? Just start talking to her out of the blue? It’s weird enough that I tracked her down and added her.”

“Exactly my point,” Meg said, sipping from her cup with a sufficient smile. “You should talk to her lest you’ll look like a stalker. Or a loser desperate for extra lives in Candy Crush.”

Sam clenched his jaw, ready to protest he was neither of those things, but Meg moved fast. She snatched his phone from his side of the table and unlocked it.

“What are you…? How did you know my password?” he asked.

“Please, I’ve seen you type it hundreds of times,” Meg huffed, amused. She opened Facebook and started writing. “ _’Hello, Jess.’_ ”

“Don’t you dare!” Sam paled.

“ _’I was just thinking of you,’_ ” Meg continued, ignoring him. “ _’Wondering how you were doing.’_ That sounds awkward enough to come from you, right?”

“Meg, I swear to God…” Sam said; his eyes widening in horror as he tried to recover his phone.

“Relax, I’m just teasing,” Meg chuckled, as she put it down. “Just joking, see?”

Sam breathed and leaned back on his chair… a moment Meg used to tap the send button, as swift as some sort of social media ninja.

“No!” Sam yelled, looking at the phone like it was a nuclear bomb and at Meg like she had just pushed the button to detonate it.

“Come on, don’t even pretend you haven’t been dying to do that for weeks,” Meg stated smugly.

Sam covered his face with his hands. “I’m going to kill you,” he muttered. “I’m going to…”

Meg never found out what Sam was going to do, because the phone vibrated. Sam stared at it for a second like he was afraid it would bite him, and then picked it up.

“It’s her,” he breathed, anxiety creeping in his expression. “She says _‘hi’_.”

“Ah, she’s as eloquent as you,” Meg poked him. “You’re a match made in heaven.”

The phone vibrated again, and this time a semi-smile appeared in Sam’s face. “She, uh… she says she hopes her Aunt Naomi isn’t being too much of a hardass on us.”

Meg was pretty sure Jess had meant to put an individual ‘you’ in that message. But she had pushed Sam in this situation, so she was going to guide him through it until he was ready to take the training wheels off his bike.

“Tell her she hasn’t put anybody to the rack yet,” she suggested.

“I’m not going to imply her aunt is some sort of Spanish Inquisitor!” Sam protested.

“Why not? Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,” Meg laughed.

“No more Monty Python for you,” Sam decided. His phone vibrated again, and he gulped when he read the message. “She wants to know if I’m still there.”

“Well? Answer the girl, dammit,” Meg encouraged him. With trembling fingers, Sam began doing just that.

 

* * *

 

Those were some lonely days for Meg. As the trees began shedding their leaves and the temperature kept dropping, Sam started spending more and more time on his phone, giggling and hiding the screen from Meg like a shy fourteen-year-old schoolgirl with a secret crush. Meg was pretty sure he missed half of everything she and everyone else told him. Which wouldn’t be much of an issue if he also didn’t completely ignore what the professors were saying, because both of their futures depended on the notes Sam wrote down in class.

“So it’s official, then?” Ruby asked, looking disheartened. “He’s dating her?”

“I’m not sure _dating_ is the right word,” Meg said, not taking her eyes away from the books opened in front of her. “More like… tiptoeing around the fact they both want to date, but neither is going to take the first step.”

“So he’s not, then?”

Meg sighed and resumed her reading. She’d gone to the library to study there, but she had seen Castiel in one of the first tables, taking notes. It’s not like she was avoiding him… well, yeah, maybe she was because the defeat at the mock trial still scalded her, but she convinced herself she returned to her dorm because it was warmer.

She didn’t count on Ruby being there to inquire about Sam’s life, the latest of her long list of annoying habits such as leaving the bed unmade and spreading snack wrappings all over the floor.

“Well, is he?” Ruby insisted.

“No, he’s not dating her yet,” Meg groaned.

Ruby clapped her hands, overjoyed. She jumped off the bed and put on her designer jeans and a pair of brown boots Meg was sure had cost the equivalent of three of her father’s wages.

“Where are you going?” Meg asked. “We have an exam tomorrow.”

“Already studied,” Ruby replied, cheerfully. Meg didn’t know when she did that, because in all of their time as roommates, she had not seen her crack one book open. Yet, she hadn’t failed any of her assignments as far as Meg knew. “I’m going shopping. You should come along too. You’re never going to find a boyfriend if you keep wearing those awful rags.”

“Thanks, my rags are just fine, Ruby,” Meg rolled her eyes. “And who the hell has time for shopping? And boyfriends?”

Ruby threw her a suspicious glance and Meg thought she was going to bring up the missing condom again (she had been trying to plant the doubt on Ruby’s head that she might have miscounted). In the end, though, Ruby shrugged and left her alone.

Meg kept reading, but after a while, she rubbed her eyes with a tired sigh. Crowley seemed to have made these stupid contract blank sheets as complicated and full of secret agendas as the loopholes in the law allowed him to. She was never going to retain all the details. She took a look at the clock. It was still early. A short nap wouldn’t hurt anybody.

She jumped into her bed. A few seconds later, she moved to lie on her left side. But that wasn’t comfortable either, so she turned around. After another while, Meg ended lying on her stomach. Ah, yes, that was much better. She buried her face on the pillow, closed her eyes and let her thoughts divagate.

Well, if Sam was going to get himself a girlfriend (whether it was because he finally grew some balls to ask Jess out or because Ruby managed to wear him down), maybe she would need someone else to hang out with. She was aware that was a shitty reason to want a relationship, but at least it was an honest one.

Besides with the workload she had (because she might or might not have been procrastinating a little bit), her boyfriend would have to be someone with a schedule as busy as hers, probably someone within Landbrooke’s Law School. Which was a terrible idea, because all the boys there were either like Sam, shy,d hard-working and a little bit too sweet for her taste; or like Castiel…

Nope. She was not going to think about Castiel and how he could easily manhandle her around the room if he wanted to. She was not going to be upset about the fact the bite mark on her shoulder (which she had not given him permission to make, that jerk) had almost completely faded away. She was not going to think how she had been lying in that same position that afternoon, and how Castiel’s fingers had left small bruises in her thighs because he held her so tight while he…

Meg jolted awake, realizing her hand had wandered between her legs without her giving it any permission to do so. Slightly disgusted, she gave up her nap and went back to her desk. She must have really been insane to let Castiel fuck her and then to keep thinking about it whenever she felt a pang of loneliness.

Ultimately, it was obvious she really didn’t need a boyfriend. She only a good enough lay to trump Castiel’s.

A task that, sadly, was not as easy as it sounded.

 

* * *

 

Sam dumped his books on the table with enough force to destroy Meg’s concentration.

“What did the table ever do to you?” Meg asked, amused. Sam sat down with a frown that would probably get him to close a lot of deals in the future.

“I need to ask you for a favor,” he said. “And I need you to say yes.”

Meg closed her notebook and analyzed his friend’s face for a moment. Sam was not joking around. Whatever this was, it must have been important if he was pulling the puppy eyes even before he had even explained to Meg what he needed.

But this time she wasn’t going to give in so easily.

“I’m sorry, are you under the impression you’re in position to ask me for more favors?” she said, pretended to be irritated. “After you dragged me into Moore’s personalized Roman circus?”

“It wouldn’t have turned into a Roman circus if you hadn’t antagonized Novak,” Sam retorted. “And then slept with him.”

Meg was so offended he brought that up that for a couple of seconds she didn’t know what to answer. Sam took her scandalized silence as a cue to continue.

“Jess invited me to a party this Halloween,” he said.

“Congratulations,” Meg said, utterly uninterested in her friend’s love life. Any mention of Castiel in any context made her irritable and bitchy. “You should have a June wedding. I’ve heard that’s lovely.”

“I don’t know any of the other people going,” Sam went on, ignoring her. “I don’t want to show up and follow Jess around all night. It’d be pathetic.”

“Well, don’t, then. Use this opportunity to make friends,” Meg said as she went back to her notebook. “I heard networking in college is a smart career move. And sitting with me in the losers table isn’t getting you anywhere.”

“Meg, please,” Sam cut her off. He put his hands together in a begging gesture. “I swear it’s the last time I ask something from you. I’ll do anything. I’ll let you copy all of my notes. I’ll give you my firstborn.”

“What the hell would I want your firstborn for?” Meg groaned. “Especially if he is as annoying and obstinate as you are.”

Sam’s offers were getting him nowhere, so he tried the next best thing: he looked up with a small pout in his lips and a watery glance.

“No. Don’t even…” Meg began, but Sam blinked a couple of times and she could swear she saw small tears forming on the edge of his eyes. “That is so unfair! You can’t just try to get away with anything by making that face at people! You just… oh, fuck it. Fine!”

“Really?” Sam asked, recovering that wide smile that could make sunflowers grow. It was gross how cute he was.

“Yes, really,” Meg said through gritted teeth. “But it better not be a costume party. And if it is, we’re not wearing matching costumes!”

“No, no costumes, I promise,” Sam nodded. “Thank you, Meg, thank you so much!”

“Anything to get you laid, I guess,” Meg said, resuming her studying. Well, it couldn’t be so bad. She might even find a guy there to erase Castiel’s touch off her skin…

“Only… I should probably warn you…” Sam began hesitantly. Meg turned her look at him again, and frowned. What was it now? “Uh… Novak is most likely going to be there.”

“What?!” Meg shouted.

“No backsies, see you later!” Sam said before gathering his things and running for his life at the speed of lightning. Meg still threw a ball of paper in his wake.


	4. Benefit of the Doubt

“You’re going to pay me for this,” Meg stated. “I’m going to sell your organs in the black market. Or your body to the medicine students. I haven’t decided yet. Either way, I’ll have back-up money if I fail my exams and they take away my scholarship because I came to this stupid party with you instead of staying in studying…”

Sam didn’t say anything. This was just the most recent of the increasingly and oddly specific threats Meg had been coming up with since he made her promise she’d go to the party with him. Also, she was fooling no one. She didn’t care about studying; she just didn’t want to be anywhere remotely close to Castiel Novak.

“Meg, he probably won’t even see you,” he insisted. “He’s going to be too busy drinking and trying to sex up another girl to notice you’re there.”

Meg hid her hands inside her jacket and didn’t say a word. The night was cold and they had already passed up a couple of drunk streakers on the way to the frat house where the party was taking place, so she wasn’t in the mood to even picture naked people. Especially if one those people was Castiel.

“You better fucking marry that girl,” she warned Sam. “She better be the love of your goddamn life, because I swear…”

“We’re here,” Sam interrupted Meg’s rant.

She took one look at the house, and decided the English language didn’t have enough insults and swear words to call Sam. They were early, but apparently the party was already in full swing: the trees in front of the house had toilet paper hanging down from them, and there were people on the front yard with red beer cups in their hands (seriously? Meg thought those were just a myth!) laughing loudly and singing something off-key. A guy and a girl were making out on the bushes next to the door (at least, Meg hoped they were just making out) with a third guy looking. The guy raised his head and whistled in Meg’s direction when they passed him by.

“Nice legs, sweetheart!” he shouted.

Meg pulled the edge of her skirt a little lower in a sudden attack of self-consciousness.

“I know, I know, you’re going to kill me,” Sam said when Meg glared at him.

He knocked on the door, but the music was way too loud for anybody to hear them. After several seconds of freezing in the autumn breeze and the guy throwing very lascivious glances at Meg’s ass, she tried for the doorknob and found out the door had been opened all the time.

“How was I supposed to know that?” Sam defended himself from Meg’s unsaid accusation.

Before she could repeat that he deserved a slow, painful death, a hurricane of blonde hair in flower-stamped dress approached them.

“Sam!” Jessica greeted as she put her arms around his neck. “You made it!”

“H-Hi…” Sam stammered, with the goofiest smile Meg had ever seen on his face. She was prepared to disappear and find herself a nice corner where she could drink the night away when Jessica noticed her too.

“Hello! Meg, right?” she asked. “Cas has told me lots about you.”

Meg felt a sudden cold running down her spine. “Has he, now?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“All good things, I promise,” Jess laughed. “You want something to drink?”

“No…”

“Yes!” Meg cut Sam off. “Yes, please.”

Jess made a gesture for them to follow her to a table where a there was enough cups of beer to get the whole school drunk. Meg grabbed one and gulped down the content while Sam and Jess awkwardly stood about trying to find a conversation topic. They weren’t succeeding because deafening rap music wasn’t exactly the most romantic setting to make conversation to.

“What?”

“I said you’re in none of our classes!” Sam shouted.

“Oh, that’s because I’m studying medicine!”

“What?”

“Why don’t you guys go to the yard or somewhere quieter?” Meg suggested, shouting to make herself heard. Sam opened his mouth, probably to protest, but Meg shook her head. “Go. I’ll be fine.”

Jess took the hint faster than Sam: she grabbed his hand and with a thankful wave in Meg’s direction, she dragged him away from her. Meg swallowed her second cup of beer, trying to avoid making eye contact with any of the boys that were shouting around her.

“Hey, _prrrrretty_ ,” someone slurred on her ear, making her jump. “You look lonely, standing here all by _yourrrrrself_.”

“I’m fine, thanks,” Meg said, drinking faster. She was still not ready to deal with guys in blue vest that were more expensive than her entire wardrobe, so drunk out of their asses they kicked aside all social boundaries.

“Ah, come _on_ ,” the guy insisted, creeping closer to her. Meg stepped backwards, but that was a bad idea: all she managed was getting corner. “Don’t you want some company?” the guy asked. He stank like stale alcohol. Not just his breath, all of him, like he had bathed in the damn thing. Meg ostensibly covered her mouth and nose.

“Even if I wanted company,” Meg said, irritated. “I wouldn’t want it from someone whose smells toxic enough to qualify as a nuclear hazard. Excuse me.”

She made a quick getaway before the asshole’s inebriated mind could registered he had just been insulted. Operation Getting Laid was not going well. The only cute boys she saw already had their hands up some other girls’ tank top, or were bumping around in the dance floor like concussed octopuses trying to make their way back to the ocean.

She grabbed another cup (what was it with this weak ass beer? She didn’t feel drunk at all) and was thinking about finding Sam to tell him she was checking out early when Goat Breath made a comeback.

“You listen to me,” he mumbled. “I was _trrrrying_ to be nice to you. You didn’t have to be a bitch.”

“Sure, insult me,” Meg answered, rolling her eyes. “That should make every girl swoon.”

“Well, yeah, you don’t smell like fucking _rrrroses_ either, you know,” Goat Breath retorted. Meg was five seconds away from threatening to hit him square in the jaw if he didn’t back down right that second, but she didn’t have to.

“Give it a rest, Brady,” a gravelly voice she knew only too well intervened. “She said she wasn’t interested.”

Goat Breath turned around to see who was grabbing him by the shoulder. Meg didn’t like the frown that appeared on his face. Brady was obviously a mean drunk.

“Get the fuck out, Novak,” he told Castiel. “This is none of your business.”

Castiel merely stared at him, his eyes as penetrating as ever, even though they looked a bit glassy. Meg figured he must have been drinking as well.

“I don’t appreciate your foul mouth,” Castiel said, in a cold tone that reminded Meg of Naomi. “And I don’t appreciate you harassing our guests.”

“Who’s _harrrrrassing_?” Brady said, looking insulted. Or at least that’s the impression he gave with his twitchy eye and his raised finger. “I ain’t _harrrrrrassing_ …”

“Excuse me if I’m unable to give you the benefit of the doubt,” Castiel commented. Meg was going to suggest they should tone down the testosterone, but Castiel grabbed her by the arm before she could. “Meg, there is a girl at our door insisting she’s with you,” he said. “It’d be extremely useful if you could confirm her story.”

Goat Breath was having a really slow night, because Meg and Cas were out of his reach in six seconds time.

“I didn’t need your help,” Meg said, releasing her arm from Castiel’s grip. The beer was finally kicking in, and she was feeling heated and a bit dizzy. “I could’ve dealt with him myself.”

“I don’t doubt that either,” Castiel admitted. His tone was obnoxiously condescending. “But I was not lying. Your friend is here.”

“What friend?” Meg asked, pretty sure Sam and Jess were making out in some dark corner by now.

But then they reached the hallway and a high pitch called her name.

“Roomie!” Ruby screamed while wrapping her arms around Meg’s neck. She failed and ended up elbowing Meg’s cheek. Her breath was as disgusting as Brady’s. “There you are!”

“Ugh, somebody got a busy pregame,” Meg commented.

“They wouldn’t let me in,” Ruby complained. She sounded like an eight-year-old trying to get her father to buy her a pony. “But now you’re here, and you can tell them you invited me. Tell them.”

Meg was tempted to declare she had never seen her before in her life. But then she saw the guy who was catcalling her earlier talking up to another girl, and out of the corner of her eye, she caught Brady making his way towards them.

“Yeah, she’s with me,” she confirmed to Castiel. She was not looking forward to babysitting Ruby, but not even she deserved to be left alone and unable to fend for herself in a house full of frat-boys.

“You heard that?” Ruby said, pointing triumphal finger at Castiel. “I’m with her! And we’re going to have _fun_.”

“That’s lovely,” Castiel said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Well, I hope you find the rest of the evening enjoyable,” he added.

Meg suddenly remembered why she hated him so much.

The next few hours were a bit of blur. Not because Meg drank anything else (that would have been a dangerous mistake), but because she had to keep tabs on Ruby at all times. Luckily, that wasn’t hard: there was no way she could’ve missed the screeching girl dancing on top of a table. What was really not that fun was when Ruby decided to make an impromptu strip show and Meg had to pull her down kicking and screaming before anyone took pictures.

Subsequently, Ruby made out with Brady and three other guys as part of a drinking game with unclear rules designed to make all the girls lose. Meg then had to escort her to the bushes, where she belched a nauseating mesh of what Meg deduced had been a light dinner.

“Okay, I think that’s enough fun for you,” Meg declared.

“What? No!” Ruby complained. “The night’s young! Where are my shoes?”

Meg remembered Ruby’s high heels flying across the room when the table-dancing started, but couldn’t have pinpointed their exact location if her life had depended on it. Especially not with Ruby leaning her whole weight on her and muttering she was sleepy. Meg looked around desperately, but couldn’t find Sam or anyone who wasn’t dealing with their own drunken friends or toasted themselves. The party was slowly beginning to die down, but she was not willing to drag Ruby to their dorm until the sun was up.

Sadly for her, the only one who seemed to be still standing in the middle of that chaos was Castiel, who raised an eyebrow and smiled amused at her predicament.

“Shut up,” Meg snarled at him.

“I didn’t say anything!”

“I could see you thinking it,” Meg replied.

They must have been a pitiful picture, because Castiel actually did swallow whatever joke he was about to make and grabbed one of Ruby’s arms.

“She can rest in my room,” he said. “It’s alright. I can lock the door until later.”

Meg hesitated, but she really didn’t have much of an option. They tumbled upstairs without dropping and breaking Ruby’s neck (which was an achievement in itself), although at one point she tried to put up a fight and ended up ripping one of the straps of Meg’s shirt.

“Shut up!” she repeated. This time Castiel simply looked away, biting his lips as he opened the door for them.

Meg didn’t know exactly what she was expecting, she just knew it wasn’t… well, _that_. For someone who was persistently late and unshaven, Castiel’s room was actually orderly to the point of obsession. The bed was made, the books were aligned on the shelves alphabetically and it even smelled nice. When they passed the desk on the way to the bed, she noticed the notebooks spread out on it next to his computer were all properly labeled.

“You’re a neat freak,” she commented, as they laid Ruby down and covered her with the bedspread. “I never would have guessed.”

Ruby mumbled something, obviously believing Meg was talking to her, and then fell asleep.

There was an awkward silence in which Meg and Castiel stared at each other, not sure what to do next. Suddenly, Meg was fully-aware she was wearing a sweaty, ripped out shirt, that her hair must look like a bird’s nest and that her makeup (that had been perfect when she left her room) was just a long forgotten memory. Not that she cared what Castiel thought about her, anyway. But she was a mess and he looked fresh as a lettuce, and that annoyed her.

“Is there a bathroom somewhere?” she asked.

“Down the hall,” Castiel indicated. Meg didn’t move. “You need anything else?”

“You said you were going to lock the door,” Meg reminded him.

Castiel sighed deeply, and he walked out with her.

“Should I be offended by your lack of trust in me or are you this way with everybody?” he asked as he gave Meg the key. She wished he hadn’t done that, because the only safe place she had to put it was inside her bra. If she ever met the misogynistic asshole who created skirts with no pockets, she was going to slash his throat.

“You’re no one special,” Meg groaned. She was tired and really not willing to put up with his shit, but of course, Castiel wasn’t going to let it go that easily.

“Really?” he asked. “Because I remembered pretty clearly your admission of me being the best you’ve had in a while.”

“Fuck you,” Meg replied, turning her back on him.

“I really don’t understand your hostility towards me, Meg,” Castiel shouted in her wake. “Although, granted, it’s only human to try to run away in shame when we know we’ve done a mediocre job.”

Meg stopped on her tracks. “Are you telling me I was a bad lay?” she asked, incredulous.

Castiel’s eyes were still shinning, just like they had been hours ago, so she couldn’t say for sure if he was drunk or not. But the way he crossed his arms and smirked at her was downright daring. And Meg wasn’t about to back down from a challenge.

 

* * *

 

The bathroom’s door banged so loud everyone on the floor must have heard it. Meg was too busy pushing Castiel against the wall to care, but she remembered to kick it close before advancing towards him and claiming his mouth. Castiel’s lips were burning and now she was beginning to see he wasn’t as cool as he’d seemed, with a pool of sweet forming in the crook of his neck. Meg licked it, very slowly, tasting the saltiness of his skin as she unbuckled his belt.

“Meg,” Castiel gasped. “Meg, I don’t have any…”

“Please,” Meg huffed. “This is a frat house.”

Sure enough, there were condoms in the cabinet. Meg grabbed one and went back to Castiel, who tried to put a hand over her ass. She slapped it.

“No,” she said, firmly. “You don’t do anything, you hear me?”

“I’m not sure how this is going to…” Castiel started protesting, but went quiet when Meg kneeled in front of him. “Oh.”

“And shut up, too,” she warned.

She unbuttoned his jeans and zipped down the flyer. Castiel moaned softly when Meg’s hand found his cock. He was half-hard already, and it only took a few, calculated strokes to bring him to full erection. Meg ripped the foil of the condom and put it in her mouth. It was a trick she had learned in high school in a particularly wild slumber party, but never had the chance to use it with a boy before. She’d never trusted her boyfriends enough to do that to them, fearing what they might think of her.

But she didn’t care about Castiel’s opinion. Or rather, she wanted to change his opinion. She’d already had casual sex with him, so that ship had sailed. Now it was all about proving he had no business saying she hadn’t been good. She was _awesome_ at sex, dammit.

Meg leaned her head forward, pushing the condom down the length of Castiel’s cock with her mouth. He let out a long, drawn out moan as she went backwards again and swirled her tongue around the tip. She looked up, and was pleased to see Castiel was pressing his hands against the tiles, looking for something to hold on to, his face red and his lips parted in ecstasy. And she was only just beginning.

She grabbed him by the hips and pulled him forwards, slowly but surely taking his whole erection inside her mouth. She began sucking gently, focusing on the weight of his cock over her tongue and the heat of his skin under her hands to fight the gag reflex. Despite her warnings, a hand came to rest on the back of her head, but he didn’t push her forwards or tried to make her go faster. He just kept mumbling and whimpering, a string of filthy sounds that made her quiver with delight.

After a while, her jaw started to ache, but she had no intention of hurrying it up. Castiel was obviously fighting his orgasm, his head leaned backwards, his neck deliciously flushed. Meg looked up, and in a moment of clarity, she realized she was doomed. That image of him so lost in pleasure, the tender caress of his palm in her hair and the little pang of pride she felt in her chest were memories forever imprinted in her mind now.

Giving head to a guy had never exactly been one of her kinks, but she soon found out there was wetness growing between her legs. Damn. She would have to take care of that eventually.

For now, she decided it was time to put Castiel out of his misery. She reckoned she’d proven her point sufficiently, so she doubled her efforts, bobbing her head back and forwards and licking enthusiastically. Castiel was actively fighting it at this point, but Meg was having none of that. She hummed around his twitching cock, and a second later, with a loud moan and a hair pull to get her out of the way, Castiel was coming hard and steady.

Meg grinned at him when he opened his eyes again, and was about to make a comment about what he thought about her performance now, but he didn’t give her time. He kneeled so they were face to face and more than kissing her, he _invaded_ her mouth, all tongue and teeth at the same time he dragged her down with him. So now they were lying in the bathroom’s floor, which was probably not the most hygienic place to have sex on. It certainly wasn’t the most comfortable, but Castiel had already slid a hand up her shirt and was tugging her panties down.

“Is… is this alright?” he breathed.

Meg had been too distracted to even mutter the “yes, yes, yes” stuck in her throat, so she simply guided Castiel’s fingers inside of her at the same time she kissed the side of his neck. His heart was still beating so fast she could sense the pulse under her swollen lips.

Castiel slipped two fingers inside her slit, and Meg bit him furiously. She had no idea she’d been this desperate, but with his body pressed tight against her, his thumb circling her clit as he fucked her with his fingers and his breath over her head, she came embarrassingly fast.

She remained there, using Castiel’s arm as pillow and looking directly into the white, cold light of the bulb hanging over their heads.

“Well,” Castiel chuckled against her shoulder. “I stand corrected.”


	5. Civilized Agreement

“This seriously has to stop happening,” Meg groaned.

She was sitting on the toilet pulling her panties back up while Castiel washed his hands on the sink. It was just the same as last time: the sex was vertiginous and dirty and well, yes, amazing. But as soon as the stupid, all-consuming _need_ to let Castiel do the most awful things to her was satisfied, she remembered that as much as she liked Castiel’s dick, she still couldn’t stand what was attached to it.

Her attraction towards him was simply something beyond her control, and it infuriated her.

Castiel closed the tap and turned around, leaning against the sink.

“I disagree,” he said simply, like they were just about to start a debate in Professor Moore’s class.

“Okay, what part of ‘I hate you’ was not clear enough for you last time?” Meg asked, irritated.

“Ah, yes, because you are also such a joy to be around,” Castiel replied.

Meg stood up, with all the intention to make an exit and never looking back, but Castiel grabbed her by the arm. It wasn’t forceful, but his cold touch was still surprising enough to make her stop.

“Despite whatever idea you have formed of me,” he said. “I’m not in the habit of having intercourse with someone I don’t have a meaningful relationship with.”

“I’m sorry, you’re worried about what _I_ think of you?” Meg asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’m not the one who’s been going around telling people about you.”

Castiel blinked. It was a slow and weird blink: he closed the right eye first and then the left one, like he couldn’t quite coordinate his eyelids to go together.

“I have respected your wishes,” he assured her, tilting his head. Meg would have said he looked like a confused kitten of sorts, but she wasn’t about to start comparing him to things she actually liked. “I didn’t tell anyone about our… encounter. I’m guessing the same restriction applies for this one?”

“If you appreciate being able to walk, yes, it does,” Meg nodded, and again tried to move past him, but Castiel stood in her way.

“You’re making this conversation harder than necessary,” he declared, squinting at her and standing way too close to her.

Meg sighed, with the exhaustion of the past night suddenly falling on her shoulders: her knees hurt, her eyelids were heavy and there was a slight headache forming in the back of her head. She was not in the mood for a fight.

“Get to the point, then,” she groaned. Castiel took a deep breath, like he was wondering how to begin.

“My point is that, notwithstanding our mutual dislike, we have an undeniable and quite uncomfortable physical attraction,” he said. He talked slowly, like he was carefully choosing his words in case they were used against him in the future. “I’m proposing we find a way to deal with it so it doesn’t interfere in our future interactions.”

Meg was going to say she had no plans of interacting with him, but then she remembered they still had to see each other every week at the mock trials and that he was close to Professor Moore. Worse than that, he was close to Jess, which meant that, if things worked out between Sam and her, she’d be forced to suffer Castiel’s presence at some point. And it was true, every time they met they either tried to rip each other’s eyes or each other’s clothes. So the need for an agreement wasn’t completely absurd.

“Look, it’s late and I’m tired. We’re both tired,” Meg said. The clock in the wall indicated it was fucking five o’clock in the morning. How did that even happen? “If we really have to talk about this, I’d like to be at least half awake.”

“Agreed,” Castiel said, blinking again in that weird, uncoordinated way. “I’m sure you’ll want to find your friends and go rest now…”

It was like he invoked his presence, because one of the doors open and a tall figure emerged from it. Meg’s first reaction was to hide in the bathroom and pray he hadn’t seen her. She had swollen lips, her shirt ripped and her hair in complete disarray. How was she going to explain that to Sam? _“It’s not what it looks like; I just gave him a blowjob.”_ God, how did she keep getting herself into these situations?

“Hey, Cas,” Sam called him. His voice sounded gruff, like he had just woken up. Meg grimaced. _‘Cas’_? Really? Since when? “Have you seen Meg?”

Meg started mentally picturing the campus for good places where to dump bodies.

“Uh… no, I’m afraid I haven’t,” Castiel replied, after a second of hesitation. “But her friend Ruby is sleeping in my room, so I assume she’s not far away.”

There was silence, and Meg could only imagine Sam’s expression, because Castiel was forced to add:

“It’s… not as sordid as it sounded,” he assured him. Meg remembered giving Castiel a hickie, so it wasn’t hard to follow Sam’s reasoning.

“No, of course not,” her friend said anyway. “Well, if you see Meg… why are you winking at me?”

“I’m not winking,” Castiel replied. “I’ve lost one of my contacts. It’s extremely bothersome.”

So that explained the glassy eyes and the weird blinking.

“You need help looking for it?” Sam offered.

Meg flushed the toilet and made her entry. If Sam helped Castiel look for the damn thing, they’d never leave that stupid house.

“Hey, Sam,” she yawned, ostensibly. “Novak,” she nodded her head in his direction, with the same studied indifference she’d been using since they’d lost against him.

“Masters,” Castiel said, and looked for something in his pocket: the key to his room. Meg couldn’t for the life of her remember giving it to him, but she snatched it from his hand and dragged Sam to the room where Ruby was still snoring.

They managed to wake her up enough to get her downstairs, they stepped over the people sleeping on the floor and miraculously, they found a taxi to take them back to their wing. They crowded in the backseat and Ruby promptly fell asleep again with her head against the window.

“So, you had fun?” Sam asked Meg, chuckling at how she had to tie up the shreds of her shirt to her bra strap.

“Don’t even… I had to deal with Ruby and guys that had me wishing I’ve bought pepper spray for hours,” she groaned. “And where were you, anyway?”

Sam looked away, but he was blushing and smiling to himself.

“Oh, I see,” Meg said, in a mockingly comprehensive tone.

“It wasn’t like that,” Sam said, blushing even more while he looked outside the window. “We just… found ourselves a quiet room and we spent all night…”

“… doing private stuff?” Meg asked.

“… talking,” Sam replied.

Meg shook her head. She didn’t even have the energy to get mad at him for being so slow and idiotic, but she still muttered: “Unbelievable…”

“I like Jess, Meg!” Sam raised his hands, defensively. “I want to take it easy.”

“There’s taking it easy, and there’s being a gutless moron,” Meg replied.

Sam huffed, looking for something to say, but then he frowned. “What’s that in your hair?”

“What?” Meg asked, a sudden rush of hysteria coming down her spine. “Is it a bug? Take it off!”

“Stay still,” Sam said, as he picked something from one of her locks.

It was small and it shone under the early morning’s light. Meg thought she should try and come up with an explanation, but Sam’s eyes opening wide in comprehension indicated her it was too late.

In the middle of Sam’s enormous palm, there was a single contact lens.

 

* * *

 

“… and that’s why, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you should find the defendants guilty,” the girl playing the DA showed the jury a seductive smile and returned to her table.

Castiel yawned behind his notebook. He supposed he should be taking notes, but the whole business was just _dull_. They were judging Hansel and Gretel for breaking and entering and manslaughter, and the case was so cut and clear there was no way it would spark a stimulating argument.

Well, of course, he had thought that about all the other “cases” as well, but then Meg had gone and proven him wrong time and time again. He sort of missed her anger at him. At least it kept things interesting.

Although there were interesting sights to look at while Meg ignored him. This week’s DA, a blonde girl named Hester, winked at Castiel on her way out to let the jury deliberate. He beamed back at her. She’d asked for his help in preparation for the case, and if she won, she had promised Castiel she’d thank him somehow. Now, that was something to look forward to. Hester was very pretty. Granted, she wasn’t as intense and intriguing as…

Someone cleared their throat next to him. Castiel raised his eyes, surprised to find Meg had used the usual fuzz of the final argument to sit by his side.

“I found your contact,” she said, handing him a neatly folded tissue and looking at everywhere but at him.

“Thank you,” Castiel replied. He wondered if he should tell her he had an extra pair anyway, just to poke her. But that’d be counterproductive.

“Do you have anything to do later?” she asked, still avoiding his eyes.

“Not really,” Castiel shrugged and imitated her emotionless tone.

“I was thinking we could have a coffee and talk about the…” She hesitated for a second. “… thing.”

That was an odd invitation. “Why a coffee?”

“Because I can’t murder you in a public place,” Meg explained. “Too many witnesses.”

Castiel bit back a chuckle. He’d cut his own arm rather than admitting it, but he loved it when Meg was so brutally honest.

“It’s a date,” he said.

That pushed her buttons. She turned to him with fire in her big brown eyes.

“It’s not a date!” she hissed.

“Masters, Castiel,” Naomi called them from the front of the class. She had a tired look on her face. “You’re not at it again, are you?”

“No, professor,” Castiel assured her, using her most innocent tone and smile. “Meg and I were having a perfectly civilized discussion, I promise.”

All the other students in the classroom were staring at them with a sort of horror in their faces. Castiel even saw a guy named Alfie scurrying away, like the blowout from their fight was radioactive. What an exaggerated reaction, really…

“Very well,” Naomi said. The frown in her face indicated Castiel that she didn’t believe them. “Perhaps you can share your opinions with us, then?”

The class gasped, and Castiel caught Sam rubbing his temples out of the corner of his eyes. Seriously, it wasn’t like they hadn’t proven that they could discuss an issue without raising their voices. Why was everyone so wary? He looked at Meg, and was happy to find she was as exasperated as him. She stood up to make herself heard.

“The case is cut and dry,” she declared. “It was clearly self-defense. The jury should find the defendants not guilty.”

Oh, come on. That was stupid. Castiel stood up as well.

“I disagree,” he declared, and there was a collective groan. “The victim was an old, blind woman. How much can harm could she possibly inflict on the defendants?”

“She drugged them and kept them locked in cages,” Meg said. “I believe that is a lot of harm.”

“The victim’s home was burned down,” Castiel continued, clenching his fists. God, why did she always have to be so infuriating? “The only evidence we have of her activities there are the defendants’ testimonies. For what we know, they could have been lying.”

“They are young and traumatized by their stepmother’s abandonment,” Meg replied. “She is the one who should be on trial right now!”

Her round face was beginning to flush, and that was another thing that drove Castiel nuts. Why did she have to look so pretty and so similar at the way she’d looked when she was down on her knees back in the bathroom last week and…?

Castiel gathered his thoughts before they reached his groin.

“You said we can’t blame people for abandoning their children in the woods, now you say we can,” he said. “You’ll make a good defense lawyer, Masters. You’re inconsistent and unscrupulous enough to be one.”

Meg opened her mouth, probably to scream at him, but the stomping of the gavel on Naomi’s desk stopped her.

“Alright,” the professor sighed, resigned. “I think that’s quite enough. Let’s hear what the jury has to say. And you two better keep it quiet.”

Meg and Castiel both sat back down. They remained with their arms crossed, stubbornly avoiding each other’s eyes until the jury reached a verdict and Naomi sent Alfie to look for the counselors.

“What time do you want us to meet?” Castiel asked. He didn’t look at Meg. She knew the question was directed towards her.

She remained quiet for so long Castiel thought she was going to tell him she’d changed her mind and to forget about it.

“Is six o’clock good for you?”

“Fine.”

 

* * *

 

In all of his years living and hanging around Landbrooke, Castiel never knew this cozy coffee shop existed. It had red bricks on the wall and comfortable armchairs. They weren’t enough patrons for it to be considered crowded, but it was empty enough to hold a private conversation. The muscular waiter (who looked more like a bouncer than a waiter, to be honest) even smiled at him while she put her cup in front of him, and the coffee was strong and delicious. It was too perfect, almost too close to the platonic ideal of a coffee shop. While he waited for Meg, Castiel thought he might have just found his favorite place in the world.

“Hello, Benny,” Meg’s rough voice said somewhere at his left, startling Castiel. He hadn’t seen her come in.

“The usual, Meg?” Benny asked.

Even that was too good. A waiter who called you for your first name? Get out.

“I have to admit that you at least have good taste in coffee shops,” Castiel congratulated Meg as she sat in front of him. Meg glared at him.

“Don’t you dare,” she groaned. “This is _my_ place.”

“It is a public place,” Castiel pointed out, amused.

“It’s _mine_ ,” she insisted. “I only invited you because Benny promised to stop me if I try to strangle you.”

Benny returned with Meg’s usual, and threw a look at Castiel that could be interpreted as pitiful look. Castiel didn’t need anyone to tell him this wasn’t going to be easy: if Meg was as an aggressive a negotiator as she was defending her mock causes…

“First of all, this is not a relationship,” Meg began. “This is never going to be relationship. You are the last person in the world who I could ever want a relationship with.”

“I am never going to understand your animosity towards me,” Castiel sighed. “But I accept that on the basis it can only come in benefit of my own mental health.”

Meg squinted at him and gulped her coffee down, obviously insulted. Castiel didn’t feel guilty. It was only fair to point out he wasn’t the only one whose flaws were an impediment for them to ever get along, let alone date.

“We _always_ use condoms. No exceptions,” she said.

“Agreed,” Castiel nodded. “Another thing: I had my STDs exams done recently, and I can show them to you, but I like to see yours as well.”

With an elegant flourish of her hand, Meg pulled some papers from inside her jacket and put them on the table. Well, she certainly came prepared for this. Castiel took out his own exams and they exchanged them over the cups. They were both clean.

“And I’d like to keep it that way,” Meg said. “Like hell we’re going to be exclusive, so if we sleep with other people, we have to be honest with them and with each other.”

“That’s reasonable,” Castiel accepted. “And if these other people are not alright with our… agreement?”

Castiel dithered on the edge of calling it a relationship, and if Meg noticed, she acted like she hadn’t.

“We stop. No phone calls, no crying, no nothing,” she said, harshly. “I don’t want any drama coming from this.”

“You mean, more drama than it’s already going to involve,” Castiel said.

“Yes,” Meg said. For a moment it was like she was biting down the word with fury. “Exactly.”

Castiel took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt. Actually, they were spotless, but he needed to keep his hands busy while he reflected. He hadn’t expected Meg to be so clear and direct, but in retrospective, he probably should have. She had never been afraid of speaking her mind.

“And as for our, uh… I don’t want to call them dates?” he said, as he put his glasses back on. “Appointments?”

“I ain’t making appointments with you, you’re not my damn dentist,” Meg snapped.

Castiel covered his mouth with his hand, trying to hide what he was doing. Of course, it was useless.

“Stop laughing,” she said, rolling her eyes at him. “I didn’t mean to make you laugh.”

“Sorry,” Castiel said, barely suppressing his giggles. “It was funny. You’re funny.”

“No compliments,” Meg said. “No presents. None of that. I want this to be strictly…”

She stopped, and she tapped her fingers on the table, frustrated.

“Sexual?” Castiel offered.

“Yes!”

Castiel finished his coffee without any rush.

“Well, Masters,” he said. “I think we’ve just got ourselves a civilized agreement.”


	6. Non Exclusive

Winter came early and with cruel intensity. The skies over Landbrooke Law School became permanently grey, like an ominous omen of a snowstorm that never came, and the trees shook off the last leaves left on their branches. Meg fished out her scarves and polar jackets from the back of her closet. In the next care package Sam received, there were three pair of mittens knitted by his mother (one for him, one for Meg and one for Jess), and a letter informing him his brother Dean would be visiting him during the Christmas week.

“You don’t look exactly thrilled about that,” Meg commented when Sam grimaced at the news.

“You don’t know Dean,” he told her. “I mean, he’s great and all, but he can be a little… overwhelming.”

“Overwhelming how?” Meg asked.

Sam hesitated for several seconds, running his fingers through his hair (which was beginning to get ridiculously long, but he wouldn’t let anyone near it with a pair of scissors).

“He’s… he has this way to…” he sighed, and began his reasoning again: “He sleeps with everything and everyone who’d let him. Men, women… he once had a threesome with a pair of twins. Or so the legend goes.”

“Huh, my kind of man,” Benny chuckled as he approached their table with their orders.

Meg hugged the cup before taking a sip. The satisfying warmth of the coffee reached her stomach and made her forget there was a freezing wind waiting for them outside to cut their faces and chap their lips.

“So he’s a sex machine and he’s ready to reload,” she laughed. “So what?”

Sam stared into his coffee like all the answers of the universe were hidden somewhere in the dark liquid.

“He wants to meet Jess,” he said in the end.

“So?” Meg repeated. “What? You think he’s going to try to… I don’t know, seduce her away from you?”

“It’s not unprecedented,” Sam replied. “He once hooked up with my prom date. On prom night.”

“Dick move,” Meg scoffed, empathetically.

“Yeah, but you could never tell upon meeting him,” Sam continued, his face a true ode to desperation. “He can charm his way out of everything.”

“Sounds like the puppy eyes run in the family,” Meg poked him. Sam clenched his jaw, a gesture that indicated that he was done with Meg’s sass and she shouldn’t push her luck lest he’d walk out dramatically. “In any case, that was way back in high school. Things are different now.”

“Are they?”

“Well, for starters, Jess is not your prom date,” Meg pointed out. “She’s your girlfriend.”

Sam didn’t answer, and Meg had to repress the impulse to hit him.

“Are you kidding me?” she shouted, exasperated. “You’ve been on how many dates and you’re still not sure if you’re together or not?”

“They’re not dates, exactly. I want to take it slow,” Sam repeated, for the millionth time. “Meg, she’s so smart and so beautiful and I don’t want to…”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, she’s a freaking miracle. Have you even slept with her?” Meg interrupted him. Sam opened his mouth, offended and then he looked outside the window, blushing slightly. “You haven’t, have you?”

“We haven’t… discussed it,” Sam confessed, still avoiding Meg’s gaze. His friend rubbed her eyes, huffing.

“I hate to say this, but you kinda deserve having your older brother swooping in and stealing her from you,” she declared.

“You’re supposed to be on my side!” Sam reminded her.

“I am,” Meg assured him. “It’d be much easier if you yourself knew which side that was, though…”

Sam threw his hands in the air, and started to get to go get support somewhere else (maybe with Ruby, who had stopped trying to flirt with him but still seemed to agree with everything he said whatsoever), but Meg grabbed his arms and pulled him back down.

“Okay, listen, we need to make a plan,” she said, changing from mocking best friend to the strategic genius Sam knew she could be. “While your brother’s here, you have to keep Jess on your sight at all times and remind her why she’s wasting her time with you. And I will take care of Dean.”

“How?” Sam asked, frowning.

“By offering him low hanging fruit,” Meg said, shrugging.

It took some seconds for Sam to understand where she was going.

“Really?” he asked in the end.

“It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for you,” Meg said, with the solemnity of a true martyr going into the lion’s den. “It’s what friends are for.”

Sam scoffed. “You just want to spite Castiel.”

Meg grabbed her cup and for a second, Sam was ready to dodge in case she threw it at him. But in the end she just gulped her coffee down and said, in the calmest, most indifferent tone:

“I have no idea what are you talking about.”

And if Sam didn’t know her any better, he would have believed her.

After the Halloween party fiasco, Meg had adopted a complete-honest policy, though Sam was beginning to think she was wishing she hadn’t. She’d told him about her agreement with Castiel and he was still not sure how exactly it worked, only that some times before the mock trials Meg would disappear around a corner and then reappear with her hair all messed up and Castiel tailing her, buttoning up his shirt.

It did wonders for their humor though, because apparently having really aggressive sex calmed down their anger at each other and they were actually able to discuss any issue like polite people. Meg had even got Castiel to agree with her one time and then she had been all smug about it for weeks.

But the other side of the coin was that now Meg got mad at Castiel for completely different reasons.

“It’s so obvious it’s sad. She only wants him because he’s freaking Castiel Novak,” she would tell Sam whenever they saw Castiel laughing and talking to this other girl, Hester. “She’s going to eat him alive.”

“I thought you guys were non-exclusive,” Sam commented.

“We are,” Meg said, sticking her nose up in the air. “We just fuck casually. He can get eaten, for all I care. I don’t care.”

That statement came in frank contradiction with the next time Sam saw her, again in _their_ coffee shop (Meg had become oddly territorial about it, for some reason) and she’d spent the better part of an hour raging about Castiel and Hester.

“He hasn’t told her about _me_!” she’d said, as she squeezed her plastic cup with so much force all the coffee spilled. Benny had to show up with a mop to clean it up.

“I thought you didn’t care,” Sam had pointed out, carefully. At this highest point of her rage, Meg had been known to cause a lot material damage.

“I don’t,” Meg had growled as Benny discreetly left a new cup of coffee next to her. “But he is explicitly violating the terms of our agreement. I’ve told him he can screw whoever the hell he wants as long as he’s honest about it, but he insists he hasn’t slept with Hester…”

“And you think he’s lying?” Sam had asked.

Meg’s eyes had been like daggers directed at his face. “Not everyone is an inept as big as you.”

Sam couldn’t find it in himself to feel insulted whenever Meg brought up his relationship with Jess. Deep down he knew the situation simply couldn’t go on undefined for much longer and that he would have to deal with labels were sooner or later. It wasn’t like he didn’t know (he sort of wanted to spend the rest of his life with Jess and be the father of her children) but he didn’t want to freak her out.

So he’d just have to wait and see. And keep Dean away from her.

 

* * *

 

That afternoon, Meg found Castiel idly hanging around her dorm, like he usually did. They always met in her room because Meg was vehemently opposed to the idea of going to the frat-house and running into some of his “brothers” (namely, that asshole Brady). When she wanted to see him, she texted him. When he wanted to see her, he just sort of… showed up there and waited for her to arrive.

“Do you have something against the use of modern technology?” she asked him, a little bit exasperated.

Castiel tilted his head, like he hadn’t understood her.

“What do you want?” she sighed, as usually defeated by his ironclad silence.

“We haven’t seen each other in almost two weeks,” he pointed out. “I began wondering if you’ve called off our agreement?”

Meg sighed and opened the door while beckoning Castiel to follow her. She had the feeling this conversation would be long and loud, and she didn’t want to have it where half the wing could find out about them.

“Do you ever clean this place?” Castiel asked, casting a disapproving glance at the chaos Ruby always left in her wake.

“You’re always too busy to notice anyway,” Meg replied.

She was also disgusted by Ruby’s messy habits, but like hell she was going to agree with Castiel on something. She sat on her bed while Castiel took the chair next to her desk. They were face to face, and not in the way they usually were, but actually talking like human beings capable of controlling their impulses. Sam would be proud.

“Do you really think I’d call off the agreement without informing you?” Meg started.

“I don’t know what you would do, Meg,” Castiel said, shaking his head. “You’re mercurial and unpredictable. It’s enormously frustrating. It wouldn’t be out of character for you to simply decide you want this no longer.”

“Like you would be sorry about that,” Meg said, crossing her arms.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Castiel asked. He tilted his head, the way he did when Meg said or did something he couldn’t quite figure out. It exasperated her that he was unable to get a hang of the most basics human interactions.

“It’s not like you would go in a shortage of sex,” she continued. She was decided to make him share at least a part of the inexplicable anger that invaded her at the thought. “With Hester hanging around you all the time.”

Castiel huffed, doubtlessly remembering their last encounter had ended on a sour note due to that very same topic. But Meg was like a dog with a bone and it would be so much easier if Castiel recognized that. She stared at him, hoping to make him feel uncomfortable and guilty for being so difficult.

“I haven’t slept with Hester,” he repeated. “I’m frankly offended you think I wouldn’t respect the terms we’ve set.”

“Awesome, so you didn’t fuck her,” Meg spat out. She knew he hated curse words, and sure enough, Castiel cringed. “Doesn’t change the fact you’re lying to her.”

“I’m not lying to her,” Castiel replied. Meg simply raised an eyebrow, and he threw his arms up in the air. “I might have failed to mention our agreement, yes, but that, technically, isn’t lying.”

“And you say I’m the one who’s going to be a good defense lawyer,” Meg groaned, as she stood up and walked to the door. “Leave.”

“Why does it bother you?” Castiel insisted, without moving an inch from where he was. “We clearly stated this wasn’t an exclusive deal…”

Meg clenched her fists, imagining Castiel’s throat in between them.

“You’re lying to her, you might be lying to me,” she explained. “It’s not that I trusted you when I walked into this, but now you’re actually giving me reasons not to. Now, leave!” she repeated.

Castiel sat there for another moment, his mouth slightly ajar and blinking behind his stupid glasses, the very image of offended incredulity. When he got up and walked up to Meg, she knew it wasn’t going to be that easy.

“I have tried everything to prove to you I am not what you think of me,” he growled. “I’ve respected your conditions to the letter when it comes to our relationship…”

“It’s not a relationship!”

“… but you can’t possibly expect to monitor my relationships with others,” Castiel continued, ignoring her protest. “You can’t control everything, Meg.”

“Leave!” Meg shouted, furious. “Get out, now!”

Castiel passed her by, with every intention of doing just that, but then the door swung opened, knocking him on the forehead. Castiel flapped his arms pathetically, like a headless chicken, and then fell down on his ass. Meg covered her mouth with her hands, all the tension of the fight suddenly leaving her body as she tried to contain the waves of laughter ripping through her.

“It’s not funny,” Castiel groaned, as he patted the floor around him looking for his glasses. “It’s not funny, Meg! Stop laughing!”

Of course, that only got her to laugh even harder. She sat back down on the bed, wiping away the tears coming from her eyes while she let out giggle after giggle. Ruby was standing still grabbing the doorknob, and looking at them like she thought she had just walked in some sort of asylum.

“You were done having sex, right?” she asked, with her usual tact. “You weren’t about to try some new weird position that involved Castiel leaning on the door?”

Castiel found his glasses and yanked them on before glaring at Ruby. There was a bump starting to stick out where she’d hit him and he rubbed it with an annoyed expression.

“Let me check that,” Meg stood up and walked up to him.

“It’s nothing,” Castiel protested, trying to step back.

“Come on, tough guy,” Meg insisted, grabbing his face by the cheeks and moving it to the side. “I don’t like you, but that doesn’t mean I want you to die from a concussion.”

She moved Castiel’s bangs aside and he grimaced when her fingers caressed the red area.

“I’ll get you something cold,” she decided.

“There’s no need…”

“Sit down,” she ordered, and Castiel shut up and for once, did as he was told. “It’ll be but a second.”

It actually took her around two minutes to run towards Sam’s room and return with an ice bag (Courtesy of Mrs. Winchester and her foresight). When she returned, Ruby had left, and Castiel was examining the books on her shelves.

“You like mystery books,” he commented. He sounded slightly surprised, like that didn’t quite fit in with the image he had of Meg.

“My dad likes them. He buys them for me and my brother every birthday and Christmas,” she replied, with a shrug as she beckoned Castiel to go back to the chair. “He’s a cop, and he says he finds it comforting to read about mysteries that actually have solutions.”

She went quiet as she pressed the ice bag against Castiel’s temple. He quivered a little at the contact, but he seemed to have completely forgotten about it. He was more hanged up on the fact it was the first time Meg shared that much information about herself with him.

“Does your brother study Law, too?” he asked.

“Nope. He entered the Academy, just like dad,” Meg said. “In a couple of years he wants to take an exam to become a detective.”

“So you’re the only would-be lawyer in your family?” Castiel asked. He was staring at Meg so intensely it made her uncomfortable.

“What’s so odd about it?” she asked, defensive.

“I always assumed…” he started, and he held onto the ice bag, like he could find the answers there. “Well, I assumed you came from a family of lawyers, like I do. By the way you argue and such.”

“No, no lawyers,” Meg shook her head. “But I do know my way around interrogatories and how to lie by telling the truth.”

Castiel raised his eyes. The little frown had disappeared, replaced by a smirk.

“So you’re a confessed liar as well,” he pointed out.

“So you’re confessing you lied,” she counterattacked.

But they weren’t angry anymore, so the accusations went in an almost friendly tone. It was actually very draining to fight all the time and they were both finding that out.

Castiel took Meg’s hand and delicately made her put the ice bag away. He wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her until she was straddling his lap, so close his breath brushed against her face. She stirred, uncomfortable. She was used to Castiel squeezing her tight and scraping her skin, so she didn’t know how to react to him being tender. She tried to kiss him, but he put a hand on her chin and held her still, piercing her face with his icy blue eyes.

“I don’t understand you, Meg Masters,” he declared after a few seconds. “You claim not to care about me beyond the physical satisfaction I can provide you with…”

“Those aren’t the words I’d have chosen,” Meg said.

“… yet it’s obvious my involvement with Hester can elicit an emotional response from you,” Castiel finished.

Meg sighed. Since when was everyone so hell bent in getting her to confess out loud something she wouldn’t even admit to herself?

“I told you I wanted no drama,” she said. “And Hester is the kind of girl who can destroy everything around her if something doesn’t go according to her wishes. So when I insist you’re honest with her, it’s completely out of self-preservation.”

“Is that all there is?”

“Yes,” Meg said. Her voice didn’t tremble and she didn’t look away from Castiel’s eyes. Her father would’ve been proud of such a convincing lie, because the truth was that Meg was making all that up as she spoke. “I don’t want to get caught up in her tantrum when she realizes you’re not that serious about her.”

“Who says I’m not serious?” Castiel asked.

“Then why are you still here?”

Castiel titled his head, and Meg hoped that would be the end of that uncomfortably intimate conversation and they could back to mindlessly fuck like they did.

“Touché,” he admitted, and then (finally) he kissed her.


	7. Back Up Plan

Dean Winchester rolled in Landbrooke in his black muscle car two days before anticipated, blasting classic rock music at a deafening volume and bringing turmoil and embarrassment with him.

“Who’s that manic?” Ruby asked.

They were standing right outside the classroom and discussing plans for Christmas (none of them was going home during the break, Meg and Sam for monetary reasons, Ruby because she wanted to avoid her family like the plague) when the manic actually parked near them. By the way Sam’s face went pale, Meg knew the answer immediately.

Dean got off the car, wearing nothing but a leather jacket (Meg shivered just by seeing him), and walk towards them with a confident grin.

“Heya, Sammy!” he greeted his younger brother, opening his arms like he expected Sam to run towards them.

“It’s Sam,” Sam corrected him, with a grimace. “And what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to arrive tomorrow?”

Dean ignored his questions and embraced Sam in a tight hug, an impressive feat given that Sam was taller than him. Then he let him go and turned his attention to Meg.

“Hi, I’m Dean,” he introduced himself, shaking her and Ruby’s hand. His grin became even wider. “Well, I see you’ve wasted no time, Sammy. Are there any girls in campus left for me to hang around or they all have a crush on you?”

Sam didn’t answer, but put his pleading puppy-eyes on, and Meg understood right away Operation Keep Dean Distracted began at that very moment.

“No, we’re just friends,” she informed him, smiling at him. “And hopefully we can be good friends, too.”

She winked, and of course she got the effect she wanted. She still had it.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?” Dean asked, with raised eyebrows and parted lips. “Wait, are you the Jess Sam keeps going on and on about?”

“No. Oh, no, I’m just Meg,” Meg shook her head and giggled, playfully. “It’d be terribly awkward if I was Jess, wouldn’t it?”

“I guess it would,” Dean chuckled.

“Dean,” Sam interrupted them. It was obvious he was trying with all his might not to roll his eyes. “Where are you staying? The motel room I reserved for you…”

“Don’t you worry about me, Sammy,” Dean replied, patting him in the shoulder so forcefully Meg could swear she heard a thump. “I’ll find somewhere to crash.”

“How did you get in here, anyway?” Sam asked. “On the campus, I mean. Visits aren’t allowed until tomorrow, that’s why I thought…”

“Yeah, about that,” Dean interrupted him, looking around nervously. Meg spotted one of the campus cops, who in turn spotted Dean and started to talk on his radio. “Well, it was good to see you. Let me know when you’re done with classes!”

Dean got inside his car again and waved them goodbye as he skidded away. The cop ran after him, but his steps seemed half-hearted, like he knew Dean Winchester would be out of his reach like the storm he was within seconds.

“So… that’s Dean,” Meg snickered.

“Are all the guys in your family so criminally attractive?” Ruby asked. She looked genuinely interested, and Meg suspected she was imagining their babies.

“Oh, God, I hope he doesn’t get in trouble,” Sam begged, with his eyes to the sky like someone up there could answer his prayers. “It’s too early for this.”

“He’s nothing like I imagined, let me tell you,” Ruby continued, ignoring Sam’s complaints. “Oh, I didn’t buy him a Christmas present!”

“I don’t think he’ll care, Ruby,” Meg commented.

“Nonsense! Everybody should have a Christmas present,” her roommate said and grabbed Sam by the arm. “Come on, you have to help me choose something for him.”

“Ruby, I can’t…” Sam began, but Ruby was already dragging him away.

“You are his brother,” she said. “Who would know better what to get for him? Come on, before the stores close!”

Sam threw a desperate look at Meg, but if she had learned one thing living with Ruby, it was that nothing could come in between her and her shopping. So she just sort of offered Sam an apologetic smile and headed for the library.

A few steps later, she stopped. Castiel was standing not two feet away, looking at Ruby and Sam walk away with an indecipherable expression. Meg thought about shouting at him, asking if he was going home for the holidays, but then she saw Hester coming up behind him. She started talking to him and Meg’s stomach was revolted by the way she giggled and waved her hair. She got out of there, thinking she really needed to ask Sam for Dean’s phone number if she wanted this thing to work out.

 

* * *

 

The holidays began okay. The campus was empty most of the time now, with everyone returning home or staying hidden indoors to fight off the cold. That had been Sam’s initial plan: to bury himself under three convers in his dorm, study and pretend that Dean wasn’t there throwing little balls of paper at him.

It wasn’t working out so far.

“Come on, Sammy!” he kept whining. “I’m bored!”

“Go out, then,” Sam huffed, picking the little ball that’d got caught in his locks. The haircut was becoming more and more urgent each day.

“It’s just not the same without you,” Dean pouted. “Show me around! I wanna be where the people are!”

“You want to hook-up with someone,” Sam accused him.

“Well, yeah,” Dean shrugged. “What’s wrong with that? Let’s have some fun!”

Sam gritted his teeth and was once again going to tell him that if he hadn’t showed up early and unannounced, he wouldn’t have to sit around and watch Sam study. That argument did nothing to keep Dean quiet, though.

“You can’t blame for want me to check on my little brother,” he would say, despite both of them knowing what he really wanted to check were the college girls around.

Before they could have that conversation for the hundredth time, Sam’s cellphone vibrated with a message.

“Who’s that?” Dean asked.

Sam tried to keep a poker face as he read it, but the flush in his cheeks and the way he bit his lips betrayed him.

“That’s Jess, isn’t she?” Dean said, suddenly interested as he stood lurking behind Sam. He snatched the phone from his brother’s hands and whistled at her picture, impressed. “Woah, Sammy! She’s a babe! Why is she wasting her time with you?”

“It’s not like…” Sam started. His phone vibrated again and Dean opened the message.

“Hey, she wants to meet up!” Dean informed him, a slow smirk Sam knew all too well blooming in his face. “Too bad you’re so busy studying, huh? Hey, maybe I should go and keep her company instead.”

The panic in Sam’s face went completely unnoticed by his brother.

 

* * *

 

Meg rolled out of bed with a groan and grabbed her ringing phone.

“What?” she snarled.

“Emergency,” Sam’s voice reached her ears, but barely. Meg couldn’t tell if it was because she still wasn’t completely awake or because Sam was talking in a very low tone. “I need you.”

“Why are you whispering?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.

“We’re meeting Jess up at Benny’s in an hour,” Sam explained, in a hurried mutter. “Dean and me.”

“And?” Meg yawned. Then, slowly, she started to get what Sam was asking. “Oh. Yeah, okay. I’ll be there.”

“Thank you,” Sam huffed and hanged up.

Meg stretched her arms and the poked the slumbering form on her bed.

“I gotta go,” she told him, getting up and starting to search for her clothes.

Castiel raised his head, blinking under the lights.

“Go where?” he asked, confused. “I thought you said you had all afternoon.”

“Yeah, well, something came up,” Meg shrugged as she buttoned up her jeans. “Sorry.”

Castiel sat up, the covers sliding down to reveal his chest and the tattoo on the side of it. His skin still had the marks of Meg’s teeth from the last encounter, and a few new ones too.

“Sorry? That’s it?”

Meg grimaced while she threw a sweater over her head. The truth was; there was nothing in the world she’d like more than going back to bed and sinking her face between his shoulder blades to finish off the nap she was taking.

She didn’t even know how it happened. Normally, once they were done Castiel would bolt out of the room and she’d get up, get dress and continued with whatever she was doing before he knocked on the door. But today Castiel had mumbled something about being too tired to move and not getting enough sleep the night before. Meg had considered waking him up the second he started snoring, but it was pretty cozy between Castiel’s arms and it was so cold out of bed…

Now she was desperately looking for a way out, even if it was to the freezing temperature outside. She felt guilty, like they had broken a quintessential rule, like the delicate balance they maintained had been slightly disturbed and she needed to get it back in order.

Maybe that’s why she said what she said.

“Yeah, sorry to ditch you like that, but you were too toasted to do anything interesting,” she replied. “A double date with Sam’s brother, instead…”

“A what?” Castiel squinted in confusion.

Meg shrugged and didn’t offer an explanation. She laced up her high heel boots (she really hoped it didn’t start snowing, because those were very pretty but not awfully convenient to walk over semi-melted frost), and looked around for her purse.

“What do you mean double date?” Castiel insisted, throwing the covers aside and standing up. Meg thought he was going to come after her and grab her arm like he sometimes did, but he just remained rooted in his spot, too perplex to do anything.

“Jess and Sam, Dean and me,” Meg clarified. “Double date. Four people, who go on a date…”

“I know what a double date is,” Castiel groaned. He patted the desk searching for his glasses, and by the time he found them Meg was already with one foot out of the door. “Wait!”

Meg took a deep breath. No. She couldn’t deal with Castiel right now.

“Get out before Ruby returns,” she instructed him. “I don’t want her interrogating you about Sam’s whereabouts and crashing the party.”

She closed the door behind her and leaned on it for a couple of seconds. As she made her way to Benny’s, she convinced herself the hurt expression on Castiel’s face had just been a product of her imagination.

 

* * *

 

Well, what did she have to feel bad about? Meg had been completely honest about where she was going and what she was going to do. Castiel kept fooling around with Hester, so what did he care if Meg dated whoever the hell she wanted? He shouldn’t care. That was the deal.

Then why she had the impulse to go back, apologize and explain this wasn’t really a date, just a favor she was doing for Sam? It wasn’t like that was going to clear things up, but maybe at least the ton of bricks pressing her chest would disappear.

But the she turned around the corner and the coffee shop’s interior received her like a warm embrace when she opened the door. None of her friends were there yet, which was unfortunate, because it’d give Meg time to keep pondering. But it was also too late to go back, and calling Castiel would just be weird.

Benny was by her table as soon as he saw her come in.

“The usual, Meg?”

“Do you have something a little stronger?” Meg asked.

She must have sounded truly miserable, because Benny threw her a sympathetic look. He came back with a little bowl of pistachios and a beer. Meg gulped it down, begging the alcohol would dissipate the awful sensation that she had done something wrong.

“Looks like somebody started the party without us,” Dean’s cheerful chuckle floated towards her, and Meg rapidly collected herself.

“Oh, that’s just me,” she said, with a smirk. “I’m all fun, fun, fun. Ain’t that right, Sam?”

“Yeah, whatever you say,” Sam said. For a guy so tall, he looked positively shrunken in his coat. Jess, as usual, looked as bright as a winter fairy in her white coat, with her long blonde hair floating behind her and her polite smile.

“It’s nice to see you again, Meg,” she greeted her, all happy and sweet while she sat beside Meg. “How you’ve been?”

“Didn’t you hear?” Dean interrupted, as he signaled Benny. “She’s been having fun, fun, fun.”

Meg laughed, knowing full well she sounded fake and a bit too loud. Luckily, Benny decided to show up at that moment and save her.

“You guys are going to have dinner?” he asked, notepad in hand.

“No, just…” Sam started.

“Wait, Sammy,” Dean interrupted. “I want to know what the options are.”

“Well, maybe you’ll want to try our cheddar cheeseburger,” Benny suggested. “You look like a cheeseburger and pie kind of guy.”

Dean raised his face in Benny’s direction, his wide eyes open and his mouth aghast, like he’d just had some sort of epiphany. Meg frowned and tilted her head, almost without realizing she was copying Castiel’s confused gestures. Benny was usually intuitive as to what their clients wanted, that guess had gone into straight up psychic territory.

“You got that right,” Dean said, the cocky grin returning to his face. “You cook, big guy?”

“I have my days,” Benny shrugged. “I do make a mean pecan pie, if you’d like to try that out. Oh, and if the burger doesn’t convince you, I can bring you the menu…”

“Nah, I’ve looked at the menu,” Dean cut him off. “I think I know exactly what I want.”

Benny beamed, his blue eyes lighting up. Meg glanced at him, then at Dean, then at Sam who was obviously avoiding eye contact with her and pretending nothing out of the ordinary was going on.

“I’ll be right back,” Benny said, and he left all flustered without taking anyone else’s order. He seemed to realize that halfway, because he returned with three menus and a flirtatious wink at Dean.

“What an attentive person,” Jess commented.

“Yeah, Benny’s like a boy scout,” Meg commented, still not quite sure of what was going on, but completely certain Sam had something to do with it. “Always prepared for everything. Even for people he’s seen for the first time in his life. It’s a bit weird.”

“Good,” Dean chuckled. “The weird ones are the best.”

Meg kicked Sam under the chair to finally call his attention and get some sort of explanation, but then the doorbell chirped announcing a new client.

“Sam!” Ruby screamed, happily strutting her way towards their table. “Meg! Hi! Didn’t know you guys would be here! Mind if I sit?”

Before anyone could answer, Ruby noisily dragged a chair from a near table and planted herself right next to Sam, literally getting between him and Jess. Sam and Meg exchanged a look, and they were both clearly thinking the same thing: how the hell did she know where they would be? The only person outside the group who could have told her… oh, shit.

“Hi, you must be Jess!” Ruby greeted her, with a smile that reminded Meg of a killer whaleopening its mouth to tear apart a baby seal.

“Nice to meet you,” Jess smiled. Oh, God, was she incapable of not being nice to people?

Meg thought about asking her to come to the bathroom and warning her Ruby was downright trying to steal her man, but the door open again. A chilly breeze grazed her face and the thoughts of helping anyone who wasn’t herself disappeared from her mind. Hester strident laught resonated on the place as she strolled in dragging Castiel by the arm right behind her.

“Cas!” Jess called, jumping to her feet all excited.

And now they were coming their way. Oh, great. Why couldn’t the Earth just open up and swallow Meg?

“Hello, Jess,” Castiel said, giving her a quick hug. “Uh, this is Hester.”

“Oh, but you’re…” Jess started, after taking a confused look at Hester and Castiel’s intertwined fingers, and then another quick glance at Meg. “Okay. Why don’t you sit down?”

Meg could think of a couple of reasons.

“No, we’re just passing through,” Hester said, and Meg swore if she saw another smile, from whoever it came, she was going to bust their teeth out. “We wouldn’t want to interrupt.”

“Nah, come on, sit down!” Dean invited them. “The more, the merrier. It’s what I always say. Right, Sammy?”

Sam looked like he was about to rip his own eyes out with the sharp edges of the menu, and Meg couldn’t say she blamed him. Benny returned, took a look at their overcrowded table and just shrugged half-heartedly, like he had seen worst massacres about to happen during his days in the Navy.

“Has everyone decided what they want?” he asked.

“Another beer,” Meg said, immediately. “In fact, a lot of beer for me.”

“And me,” Sam sighed.


	8. The Blame Game

If Meg had been asked what her personal version of Hell looked like, she probably would’ve said being forced to revive the first part of that night on an endless loop.

She tried to be a good wing-woman and flirt with Dean, but it was impossible when he rebuffed all of her attempts at conversation, too distracted checking Benny’s ass. The waiter, on his part, kept passing by their table every five minutes and winking back at Dean. So Meg gave that up and started to down beer and chew pistachios like it was going out of style, trying not to pay attention to the loud chatter around her.

“Oh, Castiel is brilliant!” Jess was saying. “When we were in second grade, he played in the school talent show…”

“You play!” Hester yelled, because she was apparently unable to maintain a conversation in a normal tone of voice. She gesticulated a lot, too, and the ring in her hand kept glinting and annoying Meg. “You never mentioned you played! What instrument?”

“Uh, the piano,” Castiel said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m not really that good. My sister Hael is the real genius.”

“Don’t be modest!” Jess hit him in the bicep. “He used to win contests all the time.”

She went on and on about Castiel’s talent while he protested that he wasn’t so great and that he must be out of practice and…

“I’d love to hear you play some time,” Hester said, moving her chair so she was closer to him and tenderly moving a finger up and down his forearm. “What song would you play for me?”

Meg looked away, disgusted, but there was no solidarity to be found in that table. The only other person who was as miserable as her was Sam, and he had plenty to do with Ruby all over him. She probably wasn’t as drunk as she pretended to be, but she kept leaning against Sam and trying to touch his knee. Meg knew that because in her confusion, Ruby had pinched her ass instead of Sam’s.

“I love the way you’re growing your hair,” Ruby said, raising her hand.

“Thanks, Ruby,” Sam replied, uncomfortably doing some amazing acrobatics to prevent her from touching it. “That’s… really nice of you.”

“You’re so cute,” Ruby slurred. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“It might have come up… some time I guess…” Sam said, awkwardly trying to move his chair and throwing a panicky look at Meg. She simply took the bottle of beer to her lips. That’s what he got for making her the back-up plan if Dean and Benny didn’t hit it off. Who, by the way, were currently giggling and making eyes at each other not three inches away.

“So what time does your shift end?”

Meg put the beer down.

“Okay!” she said, a little louder than she intended to. “I think it’s time for me to go.”

Her announcement was met with a bunch of boos and protests, but she argued something about an essay she needed to write (which was bullshit, and anyone could tell it was bullshit), and stood up, almost stumbling on her feet and bringing the whole table down with her. But she managed to recover some semblance of balance and staggered towards the door.

The sharp, cold air was like a slap in the face and just exactly what she needed to clear her head a little bit. She breathed it in like she had just emerged from the waters after almost drowning. Silence and the idea that Hester and Ruby’s laugh were now behind worked like a balm on her exhausted mind. Some snowflakes were floating all around as she fished her mittens from inside her pocket and put them on. The street was lit up by the ever-changing red and green festive lights.

Meg had not taken two steps in… some direction (she couldn’t say for sure it was the direction to her dorm) when Castiel’s unmistakable deep voice came calling her name. She kept walking like she hadn’t heard, but he called her again, and there were hurried footsteps on the frosty ground as he rushed after her.

Was he insane? He could slip on the wet pavement and break his skull!

If for no other reason, Meg turned around and Castiel stopped in his tracks, panting.

“Go away!” she yelled. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Meg,” Castiel gasped. “You’re drunk.”

“Yeah, and what’s it to you?” she replied. “Go back in with your girlfriend and play stupid piano songs for her. Leave me alone.”

Castiel didn’t leave her alone. In fact, he got even closer. He tried to reach for Meg’s shoulder, but she took a brusque step backwards. Castiel put his palms up and remained at a prudent distance, which in this case, was any distance out of Meg’s arms reach.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have told Ruby where you guys were, and I shouldn’t have crashed with Hester. It was a stupid, petty thing to do.”

“I knew it!” Meg shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “I knew you were the leak!”

“I was angry!” Castiel admitted. “You walked out on me this afternoon and I just…”

“Oh, so this is my fault?” Meg asked. Despite the wind, her face was heating up. “Is that what you’re saying? I brought this upon myself?”

“I’m trying to apologize here!” Castiel interrupted her, clenching his fists in rage. “Why you have to make it so difficult?”

“Why you have to be such a sneaky bastard?” Meg replied.

She hoped she’d sounded sarcastic, but the momentary lucidity she had gained when leaving Benny’s had disappeared, diluted in her fury. Her mind was clouded again, and all she could think about was how much she didn’t want to be there. She turned around, but her heels and her drunkenness betrayed her: she stumbled and waved her arms. For one terrifying moment, she thought she was going to end with a broken nose, which would the cherry on top of the shit cake this night was turning out to be.

A firm hand grabbed her by the elbow and propped her back up. Instinctively, Meg threw an arm around his neck until she could plant her feet on the ground, and then looked up. Castiel let go off her immediately, but Meg’s impulse to make a dramatic exit had faded. Instead, she just felt tired and frustrated and wanted Castiel to take some of the blame for it.

“What’d you have to be angry about?” she asked. “Because I woke you up from that stupid nap? Because I went to have a date with another dude who ended up being more interested in our waiter anyway? Fuck, you’re practically dating another girl.”

Castiel didn’t answer. He looked up, and his eyes were glassy again, although this time Meg couldn’t have said for sure if it was because of the contacts. His cheeks were red, but his shoulders were slumped, like all the energy had also been drained from him.

“It didn’t mean anything. It _never_ means anything,” Meg continued. “That’s how we operate, Cas. That’s how it is. I’m getting tired of having to remind you.”

“You’re right,” Castiel said. There was resignation on his voice. “This situation is… unusual for me, and I’m still not sure how to navigate it. I’m sorry.”

Meg thought that would be it and that he would go back to Benny’s now, but he didn’t move. He was obviously waiting for her answer, but she simply had nothing left to say. She tried to get away again, but her boots were definitely conspiring against her. Her heels skidded on the wet street and she had to extend a hand towards the wall to keep steady. Unfortunately, Castiel interpreted that a whole different way and grabbed her elbow again.

“You’re too drunk to walk to your dorm alone,” he pointed out.

“I’m fine,” Meg argued, struggling to get out of his grip, but he was freakishly strong and apparently decided not to let this awful night die out.

“Won’t you just let me help you?” he asked, through gritted teeth. “Just this once. Let me… just let me…”

Meg’s head was spinning now. She took a deep breath and hid her face in Castiel’s chest, waiting for the world to stop moving around so fast. It didn’t feel half as bad there, or it wouldn’t have if someone hadn’t break out singing _Jingle Bells_ somewhere.

“I hate carolers,” Meg groaned, closing her eyes and breathing in the sweet scent coming from Castiel’s sweater. “Fine.”

“Fine what?”

“Fine! Help me out,” she said. She was either going to kill someone or herself at this rate.

“So you’re going to let me…?”

“Yes, okay? Yes!” Meg muttered, still not opening her eyes. “Take the hint and take me home, will you?”

The rest of it was a little bit blurry, because after that Meg gave in to the waves of nausea and sleepiness creeping inside her head. She was barely aware that Castiel hailed a taxi and helped her inside and that her cellphone was vibrating insistently inside her jacket pocket. She took it out and extended it to him.

“You deal with them, I can’t even…” she muttered, pressing her forehead against the cool glass and watching the lights passing in front of her until she got sick and had to close her eyes. She could hear Castiel’s voice right behind, but she only caught a few words of what he was saying, like it was coming at her from a long, static-filled distance.

“… she’s with me… yes, I’ll make sure… alright, then. Good night.”

After what felt like an eternity and a lot of unnecessary curves, the taxi stopped, and Castiel ran out to open Meg’s door. It took her a few seconds to recognize the house now that the trees had no toilet paper hanging from the branches and the windows were all dark.

“Why the hell are we here?” she mumbled. “I don’t want to be here.”

But she was too wasted to fight it when Castiel grabbed her elbow again and escorted her across the yard.

“I know you don’t,” he said. “But Sam called to inform you forgot your wallet with your ID and your magnetic card on the table.

“So?” Meg asked, annoyed. Then she realized it must be ass-o’clock in the morning and she’d have no way to get in her wing without Ruby or Sam. Well, wasn’t that just _peachy_?

Climbing up the porch steps was a vertiginous nightmare, but what really worried her was what waited for her at the other side of the door.

“What about your bros?”

“I believe the house is empty tonight,” Castiel replied. “Most of them had gone home for the holidays, and the rest are probably out on a party or the other.”

“Including Brady?” Meg asked. Just the memory of his stench made her nauseous. Or maybe it was the beer messing with her brain, she couldn’t tell at this point.

“Especially Brady,” Castiel chuckled.

Meg slumped on the first soft surface she detected (the couch) and buried her face on the cushions, hoping the world would go away if she simply ignored it hard enough.

“I guess that means you’re not in conditions to climb the stairs,” Castiel said. She couldn’t even be bothered to answer.

His footsteps disappeared and she thought she could finally lose consciousness in peace. A moment later, though, she felt the warmth of a blanket covering her body. She lazily opened her eyes to find Castiel standing next to the couch, with a pillow in his arms, probably wondering how to put it under her head without waking her.

“Why are you so sweet on me?” she asked.

It might have sounded like a strange question for Castiel, who frowned a little, but to Meg it made perfect sense. She had made him angry. She had screamed at him in the middle of the street. She had made him walk out on his girlfriend, and she couldn’t imagine Hester being too happy about it. And despite everything, he was taking care of her.

“I don’t know,” he said, in the end, and gave Meg the pillow. She hugged it like it was a teddy bear and closed her eyes again. Castiel took that as his cue to leave, but Meg extended a hand and stopped him.

“Stay with me?”

In the morning, she wouldn’t be able to explain why she asked that, but in that moment it seemed like a completely reasonable request. And it was also completely reasonable for him to sit down next to her and for her to put her head on his lap.

“You’re like a cat,” Castiel said, running his fingers through Meg’s hair. “I can only be affectionate towards you when you allow it, and I can never predict when that will be.”

“You know, you’re so much cuter when you’re shutting up,” she said, snugging closer. “Do you want to watch TV or something?”

“I thought you were about to fall asleep.”

“Word of advice: don’t try to understand a drunken girl’s whims,” she replied.

Castiel laughed and searched for the remote. There was a cheesy Christmas movie in black and white, and Meg would rip her own eyes sooner than admitting it, but it was one of her favorites. She was drowsy, and Castiel methodically touching her hair didn’t help, but she was decided to watch the stupid movie to the end.

“What kind of name is Clarence for an angel?” Castiel asked, tilting his head.

“What kind of name is Castiel for a boy?” Meg retorted. “I bet they bullied you nonstop in school.”

“Not really,” Castiel said. “A couple of kids tried. Father threatened to sue the school if they went unpunished.”

“Figures,” Meg chuckled.

“I wish he hadn’t. It got even lonelier after that.”

As always when they realized they were getting too personal, they both went quiet suddenly. Castiel had stopped caressing Meg’s hair, and on the screen, George Bailey was gathering his family around him. Meg was started to drift away when he spoke again, out of the blue:

“I came clean to Hester about you and me earlier today,” he said.

That startled Meg enough to lift her head a little. “And?”

“She suggested she and I keep our relationship strictly platonic,” Castiel said. Again he was doing that thing where he talked slow, like he weighed every word on his tongue before letting it out.

“I didn’t ask you to do that,” Meg pointed out.

“No, but Hester reckons is the best for everyone,” he replied. “She understands our agreement is informal and strictly physical, so she has no reason to feel threatened by it.”

“Well, that’s more mature than I expected,” Meg admitted. Then she remembered the glimmer of Hester’s ring and the realization dawned on her. “She’s made a chastity vow, hasn’t she?”

“She told me it’s alright because men have different needs,” Castiel confessed. He shook his head, like he couldn’t quite believe the sheer stupidity of what just came out of his mouth, and Meg burst out laughing.

“So she lets you fool around with me until you two get married,” she mocked him. “That’s freaking golden.”

“I’m probably not going to marry Hester,” Castiel replied. “I never really thought about… marriage.”

He said the last word like it burned in his throat, which amused and intrigued Meg to no end. She also didn’t have “Picket white fence and 2.5 children” in her bucket list, but she figured that Castiel’s upbringing had been a little more traditional.

“Why not? She’s pretty, she’s religious, she laughs a lot,” Meg listed. “I bet your family would approve of her.”

“Let’s not talk about my family,” Castiel begged.

Meg shrugged. The movie was over and she wasn’t in the mood for talking anymore.

“Whatever you say, Clarence.”

 

* * *

 

The frat house’s living room looked different under the morning light without slumbering people and empty cups of beer littered all around. Meg blinked and looked around at the beige walls and the artistically carved furniture that blended in perfectly with the modern home theater, and… was that small Christmas tree in the corner decorated with hanging dicks? Of course.

Meg rubbed her eyes and wandered around until she found a bathroom. Miraculously, her stomach wasn’t as upset as she expected, and her headache was tolerable. She considered about waking Castiel up, but the thought of climbing up the stairs dissuaded her. Instead, she wrote “ _See you around, Clarence_ ” on the notepad next to the phone and left.

The day was grey but the cold had remitted, and her headache had practically disappeared by the time she reached the desk of her dorm wing. She put on her very best puppy eyes (imitating Sam’s) to convince the guard she really lived there, only she had misplaced her ID and her magnetic card. The guard had no interest in torturing her, luckily, so Meg was allowed in without further troubles.

On the hallway, she hesitated and ended heading for Sam’s dorm. She didn’t believe he had trusted Ruby with her things, and she also wasn’t sure Ruby would be willing to get out of bed that early, even if it was to open the door for her.

Sam looked like a mess, with his excessively long hair falling over his bloodshot eyes and a coffee stained shirt he had obviously put on because it was what he found first.

“Good morning,” Meg smiled, like her neck didn’t ache from sleeping on a couch and she had totally brushed her teeth earlier.

“Ugh,” Sam growled, moving aside to let her in.

“Where’s Dean?”

“He went home with Benny,” Sam told her, closing the door and fishing her wallet from his desk. “Told me not to call him all weekend unless I wanted to hear things that would mentally scar me forever.”

“So that worked out well.”

“I guess,” Sam rubbed his eyes, and it took him a second too long to realize her friend was glaring at him. “Okay, don’t be mad at me.”

“Too late,” Meg said, grabbing a pillow and starting to hit Sam’s head with it. “You could have… at least… warned me… you were bringing… goddamn Benny… into this!” she yelled, accentuating each of her words with a hit.

“Hey, I needed a back-up plan!” Sam excused himself, covering his head with his arms. “And what the hell, Meg? Why did you tell Ruby?”

“I didn’t tell Ruby, I told Cas,” Meg confessed. If anything, no one could say she didn’t own up to her part on the previous night’s fiasco. She dropped the pillow on the bed and sat. “It was a long, convoluted problem of jealous people taking petty revenges at each other.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Sam shook his head. “But I think it ended well, you know. After you left…”

His cellphone rang with some crystalline bells that Meg imagined were what went inside Sam’s head every time he thought about Jess. Sure enough, a big goofy grin appeared on his face.

“It’s a notification from Jess.”

“You have her on your notifications? Nerd,” Meg poked him.

Sam didn’t reply. His smile became tense and decayed. He brought the sides of his lips back up, only to have them fall again. It was like somebody had told him an unfunny joke, and he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or scream at that person.

“Sam?” Meg asked, concerned. “What? What is it?”

Sam handed her the phone and sat on his bed, moving his eyes to the sides really fast. His mouth was open, but no words came out of it. Meg read the Facebook post, and the reason for Sam’s shock was immediately clear. She wished she had comforting words to offer to her friend, but she too was dumbstruck and the only thing she came up with was:

“Well… fuck.”


	9. Edge of an Epiphany

“I’m fine, Meg, really.”

In the following weeks, Meg lost count of how many times she heard those words coming from Sam’s lips and how many times she called him on his bullshit, because whatever Sam was, ‘fine’ was definitely not one of them.

In her original post, Jess had simply enough stated she’d changed her plans after what she described as a “very disheartening night” and decided to go see her family for the holidays. It had been abrupt and surprising, but not in itself worrying. Sam had recovered from his initial astonishment and decided to talk to Jess, to apologize to her for whatever he’d done to ruin what for him had been a very successful evening.

Meg had pointed out that it was successful to him, because he’d managed to keep Dean away from Jess, but didn’t care enough to vanquish Ruby from his side.

“No, that can’t be it,” Sam had refused to believe it. “Jess knows nothing’s going on between me and Ruby. It must be a misunderstanding of some sort. I’ll just call to her so we can talk about this…”

And then Meg had watched those already feeble hopes crash and burn: Jess wouldn’t answer Sam’s calls or texts, she wouldn’t reply to his messages, or even read them if Facebook was to be believed. As the days went by and Jess remained hidden behind her wall of silence, Sam’s denial that whatever happened couldn’t have been that bad turned into the bleakest desperation.

“She hates me,” he’d kept repeating, with the most miserable expression. “Oh, my God, she must think I was just playing with her! Meg, I should’ve listened to you. I should’ve just defined where we were going, I should have…”

As much as Meg loved being recognized in the right, she didn’t like it when it was in the middle of a self-pity fest. It deprived her from the satisfaction of saying “I told you so.”

“Well, she can’t blame you for everything,” she’d said, trying to be just. “She’s the one who made a passive-aggressive Facebook post and then dropped off the face of the Earth without another word.”

“What could she have possibly said? What’s there to talk about?” Sam had complained, hiding his face in his hands. “She must absolutely hate me!”

The bright side was that there was a lot of comfort studying those days. Sam needed to keep his mind off things and the only way Meg knew how to get him to do that was dragging him to the library. Thanks to that, they passed their midterms with flying colors, but not even a perfect grade managed to cheer Sam up.

Then February had rolled around, and one day, all of the sudden, Sam moved on from his grief to a calmed indifference that fooled exactly no one.

“I’m fine,” he’d kept saying, as he walked Meg to her dorm. “It’s alright, Meg, really. It’s her decision and I’m going to respect it. After all, we weren’t that serious, I mean… do you want to go to Benny’s? I heard they have a special promotion of red velvet cupcakes.”

“They’re covered in heart-shaped sprinkles,” Meg reminded him. “You know, ‘cause of Valentine’s Day. And Benny is still bragging about how he got in your brother’s pants.”

Sam cringed, because those days he suffered an aversion bordering on full-on phobia to anything that reminded him of love and couples.

“Okay, maybe not to Benny’s,” he accepted, as they kept on moving towards their dorm wing. “But we should go out somewhere anyways, have some fun…”

“You remind me of Dean,” Meg told him. That was probably the worst insult she could throw at him, but at least it managed to shut him up. “Look, Sam, this is obviously still eating you up…”

“I’m trying to maintain a positive attitude, okay?” Sam said through gritted teeth. “I’ve been told is the best I can do in a situation like this.”

“Who the fuck told you that nonsense?” Meg asked.

Ruby practically materialized in her dorm’s doorway, wearing a very tight pair of jeans and a radiant smile.

“Hello, Sam,” she greeted him. “I thought I heard your voice coming this way.”

“What are you, half-Labrador now?” Meg asked.

Ruby ignored the jab. She took a lock of hair between her fingers and started twisting it while licking her lips.

“I was wondering if you’d like to go out some time,” she said. “Just you and I, having some fun…”

Meg suppressed a heave while Sam took a step backwards.

“Wow, Ruby, that’s… very kind of you to invite me,” he said, like he hadn’t been proposing the same thing two seconds before. “But I’m kinda busy right now. In fact, I’m super busy. Gotta bolt, bye!”

And he all but escaped waving his arms and screaming for help. Ruby clicked her tongue in frustration.

“Oh, well,” she said, with a little shrug. “It’s just a matter of time…”

“I don’t have to tell you how creepy that sounds, right?” Meg asked, strolling past her.

“I’m a girl who knows what she wants,” Ruby said. “And what I want it’s a date on Valentine’s Day. Something you wouldn’t know about.”

Meg pretended not to hear her. She was growing tired of Ruby’s stalkerish tendencies and frankly, she put half the blame on her for the failure of Sam and Jess’ relationship. The other part was put on the person who couldn’t keep his mouth shut and who the previous day had all but told her they shouldn’t see each other during those weeks out of respect to Hester’s delicate sensibilities.

“You understand, this holiday is…”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Meg had murmured as she clipped her bra on. “For actual couples and such.”

She didn’t know why it’d bothered her so much. Of course Castiel and her celebrating Valentine’s Day together would have been awkward, not to say downright wrong, but the idea that he had just fucked her, yet he was talking about Hester… it just made all the business so icky…

“I feel like the other woman,” she’d said, suddenly understanding where the pit in her stomach and the disgust with herself came from. “I feel like you’re cheating on her with me.”

Castiel had frowned, disconcerted.

“Well, that wouldn’t be right,” he’d replied. “Cheating requires concealment of the illicit relationship, which in this case doesn’t apply. And besides, my agreement with you predates my relationship with Hester, so…”

“I know!” Meg had cut him off, annoyed. “I know we’re not doing anything wrong and that Hester is on board with this! Save it, ‘cause those are the excuses I keep telling myself. It still doesn’t help me to look at myself in the eye when I stare into the mirror.”

That had been excessively dramatic on her part, it was true. But it just baffled her that Castiel couldn’t see it from her perspective. It was even more irritating that she couldn’t even explain properly what she meant to say.

“I don’t understand, Meg,” Castiel had said. Meg had rolled her eyes.

“You never do,” she’d said. “Don’t forget your glasses.”

 

* * *

 

That had been two weeks before, and she hadn’t found Castiel roaming around her dorm since. Valentine’s Day had come and passed, and after it, the last vestige of cold weather was gone. The sun began to shine more and more, and the angry clouds that had loomed over the campus for months dissipated without their promised storm.

Sam looked a little more relaxed now that there weren’t pink flowers and hearts floating everywhere, although he kept rejecting Ruby’s advances (which Meg approved of wholeheartedly) and sinking his nose in his books to avoid his problems (which she was starting to think was unhealthy). Despite all the ‘I’m fine’s, Meg was still a little worried about him. She knew Sam had been head over heels for Jess and that was what drove him to act so cautiously. He was also too polite to outright tell Ruby he wasn’t interested, but Meg was beginning to wonder if Jess had known that.

She considered asking Castiel what he knew of Jess’ decision to cut ties, but she stopped herself every time she was about to text him. She didn’t want him to think his silence was also starting to take a toll on her.

But a week before spring break rolled over, the first genuinely warm day with legitimate blue skies and some actual green grass starting to emerge from the ground, Meg ran into Castiel at the entry of her wing. His little gasp and the way he started stammering indicated her he had been there to see her. She would later try to explain away the warm, fuzzy feeling that arose on her chest by finding a million other reasons unrelated to Castiel for her sudden good mood.

But in that moment, she grabbed him by the lapels of his shirt and pulled him down to kiss him, open-mouthed and desperate, before dragging him into her room, not caring who could see them or if Ruby was in there.

Her skin was tingling and hypersensitive under his touch, and her lips burned every time she reached for him. Not willing to let go off each other, they staggered backwards until they fell on the bed, panting and struggling with their annoying clothes. Meg was frenzied: she ripped his shirt open and a couple of buttons flew towards the other side of the room. Castiel chuckled as they tossed and turned over the covers, until Meg was lying beneath him. He grabbed her wrists and held her hands over her head.

Meg’s body arched with desire when he sank her teeth on her neck, like he had noticed all the little marks and bruises that had begun fading from her body during the time they’d been apart, and he needed to start covering her with new ones right away. His stubble scraped the spot under her ear, and Meg moaned, running her fingers through his hair and pressing the back of his head anxiously to urge him to be done with it.

Castiel wasted no time. He was as impatient as Meg for once, so he didn’t stop to tease her or bite her while he put the condom on. As soon as he was ready, she wrapped her legs around his waist, moving against him to allow him to bury his cock deeper and deeper inside her, closing her eyes to better retain the memory of his short gasps, the taste of his sweat, the vigor of his thrusts.

“Cas,” she breathed in his ear, and Cas’ grip became ferrous over her wrist and her hip, and Meg was glad to know the form of his fingertips would be imprinted on her the following day. She never felt more beautiful than when her lover made her his work of art, when she could trace the scratches on her and shiver because they were a reminder he had been there…

Meg came unexpectedly, her orgasm ripping through her like a wonderful surprise, her eyes opening wide in awe. Castiel followed soon after, still using all his weigh to press her harshly against the mattress.

They stayed there, in a locked embrace, a mess of lazy limbs, heavy breathing and satisfied smiles. Meg pinched Cas’ ass playfully and he chuckled against her shoulder. And for a second there, she allowed herself to admit that she had missed him dearly.

 

* * *

 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come to see you sooner,” Castiel muttered a little later, when they were able to speak again.

“It’s fine, Clarence,” Meg said.

It wasn’t, though. A part of her wanted to scream at him for taking so long and just who the hell he thought he was just popping up like that. But then again, a part of her always wanted to scream at Castiel. And she was too comfortable using his arm as a pillow and her legs tangled on his to start a fight that would require her to keep enough distance between the two so she wouldn’t be distracted by his eyes.

“I’ve been studying like crazy and preparing some applications for an internship this summer,” he continued. “And then a pipe broke down in the house and it was the most absolute chaos. I don’t know why they trust me to solve all those problems, but…”

“I said it was fine,” Meg interrupted him.

She was drowsy and happy, why he had to go and ruin it with explanations she didn’t care about? And that without counting he hadn’t mentioned Hester yet, but Meg knew it was a matter of time. It annoyed her. She wanted to bask in the afterglow just a little longer before she had to remember how fucked up the whole business was. Was that too much to ask?

For once, Castiel listened to her and went quiet. His fingers idly played with her hair and he buried his nose in her neck. Meg didn’t need to turn around to see him to know he was closing his eyes and beginning to drift off to sleep. She sat up immediately, startling him.

“Right,” he sighed. “Right, of course.”

He sounded oddly disappointed, but he let go off her. Meg started picking up her clothes while Castiel rolled over on the bed, watching her. The silence between them was so awkward Meg started wishing they were fighting now.

“So… internship, huh?” she asked. “Sam says we should send some applications for that. Some legal aid office or the other.”

Immediately, she realized she had made a mistake: Castiel was Jess’ friend, so that topic wasn’t safe either. But Castiel simply shrugged and kicked the covers aside.

“Sam’s very dedicated to his career,” he commented simply.

“Yeah. That he is,” Meg nodded.

Again, there was a pause. Meg pulled her jeans back up and started thinking of an excuse to ask Cas to leave, but then he cleared his throat.

“This was really nice,” he said. “But that was… not the reason I came here.”

For a moment all the worst case scenarios ran through Meg’s head. He was going to tell her Hester had changed her mind and that the deal was off and Meg would have to pretend everything was alright because the whole “no drama” clause had been her idea from the beginning and…

“I was wondering if you had any plans for the spring break.”

Well, she didn’t expect _that_. Meg turned around and analyzed Castiel’s expression. He was using his mutant ability to pull a perfect deadpan, though, so she couldn’t read anything into it.

“I was going to visit my dad,” she replied. “Since I couldn’t go home for Christmas and all…”

“Oh,” Castiel blinked. “Alright.”

He kept getting dressed like nothing had happened, but Meg’s curiosity had been peaked.

“Why’d you ask?”

“No reason,” he replied, buttoning up his shirt only to get stuck halfway through because of the missing buttons. He went on all fours and started tracking them down, and apparently not being face to face with Meg gave him the courage to speak: “It’s just… my family has this little cottage near the lake. It’s a five hours drive from here. Usually one my siblings or my father occupy it for their fishing trips, but this year they’re all busy and I was wondering if you’d like to… but if you’d made other plans already, I…”

Castiel stopped and looked up. He had been so busy searching for the button or pretended to he hadn’t realized he almost crashed against Meg’s legs. She was looking at him with frank confusion on her face.

“And you thought it was a good idea to invite me to come along?” she asked. “Cas, even if we survive the road trip, having us both locked in some isolated place is either the beginning of a porno or a potential murder scene.”

“I was hoping for the first option,” Castiel confessed, with an awkward smile.

Instead of calling him a pervert and kicking him out of the room, Meg leaned down and fished something small from right next to Castiel’s hand: the goddamn button. He stood up, dusted off his knees and extended his hand to receive it.

“And what does Hester think about that?” Meg asked, in what she hoped was a completely disinterested tone of voice.

“Well, even if she had an opinion, it’d be largely irrelevant, since we’re no longer involved,” Castiel said. Unlike her, he had the casual tone of voice thing down to a science, because he made it sound like he was talking about the mild weather they were having those days.

“What?” Meg asked, raising an eyebrow. “You broke up with her? Right after Valentine’s Day?”

“It was more of the other way around, actually,” Castiel grimaced, and Meg could only imagine how that conversation went. “She bought promise rings as a Valentine’s gift, to signify that our love was pure and that one day we’d be engaged and then married. I swear I saw shackles shining in her eyes. I pointed out our relationship was in a too early a stage for that sort of commitment, and she… well, she called me things you wouldn’t believe came out of the mouth of a good Christian girl.”

“So what? I call you things that would make Satan blush all the time,” Meg replied. “I was kinda beginning to think you were into that.”

“Yeah, but it’s different when you do it,” Castiel shrugged. “You never say anything that isn’t true.”

He slid the button on back pocket and gave Meg a kiss in the cheek before rushing out of the room. Meg stood on her place, completely frozen, watching the door that had closed behind him for several seconds. Castiel opened it again.

“I don’t know why I did that,” he said. He looked positively lost, like he had forgotten where he was and why he’d gone there. “Did it make you uncomfortable? I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Meg assured him, though she herself was still processing it.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Don’t sweat it, Clarence.”

They stared at each other from both ends of the room. Meg had always known that Castiel’s hair was in a constant state of disarray, and even more so when they had just finished fucking, but it had never occurred to her until now just how criminally adorable it made him look. It was no wonder Hester had tried to close the deal a little bit too fast and that most of the girls in Landbrooke were after him.

But none of them had been invited to spend the spring break with him in his family cottage in the lake, had they now?

Castiel squinted. “Uh… I forgot my glasses.”

“Right.”

Meg grabbed them from the desk and tossed them at him. Castiel almost dropped, but at the last second he managed to hold on to them. A satisfied smirk appeared on his face as he waved at Meg before leaving definitely.

Meg still waited several seconds before picking up a pillow and putting it against her face to suffocate her scream. What was _wrong_ with her? Why was she suddenly acting like a fourteen year old girl with a crush? Why did she care about that stupid invitation? Why did he even make it? They had never agreed on doing something like that!

But of course, the deal had been bullshit for a while. Ever since he’d gone after her on Christmas, even she had given her a nickname, ever since she’d realized how uncomfortable Hester’s presence made her, it was just…

Meg was at the edge of an epiphany, but she had the feeling she wasn’t going to like it when she finally had it. She threw the pillow across the room and texted Sam to meet her at Benny’s for a really intense session of deflecting and coffee drinking. She promised herself she would think about the whole thing with Castiel over the spring break. A little distance might be just what she needed.


	10. Against My Better Judgment

Meg was quickly realizing than every once in a while, the whole universe conspired to screw people over and it apparently had a bone to pick with her those days.

“Oh, my God!” she shouted on the phone. “Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah, we’re fine, pumpkin,” her father assured, but Meg didn’t quite believe him.

Mr. Masters, nicknamed Azazel within the force for reasons that were beyond Meg’s comprehension, didn’t drink or smoke a lot (not as much as when he was in active duty, at the very least), but every once in a while he would crack open a cold one, light up a menthol and sink in his favorite couch with a mystery novel.

“I blame this one on Dan Brown,” he said. “If he wasn’t so overly descriptive and just went on with the story, people wouldn’t fall asleep over his books…”

“Dad, focus,” Meg interrupted him, as she sat on the steps outside her dorm wing. “Did anything of value was lost? Are you and Tom hurt? Will the insurance cover the damages?”

“Woah, woah, kiddo, slow down,” Mr. Masters interrupted her. “I didn’t call you to get all lawyer-y on me, alright? I was just trying to warn you so you won’t be surprised when you come back and find out your room stinks of smoke.”

Meg took a deep breath and looked up at the horizon, slowly turning from red into dark blue.

“Tom forced you to call me, didn’t he?” she guessed.

“I told him you don’t need to be worrying about these things,” Mr. Master complained. “You probably have your hands full with all your studying and…”

Meg rubbed her eyes, using her index finger and her thumb, the way she had seen her father do millions of times whenever he stayed up late working a case. Mr. Masters belonged to that old school that taught men to swallow up their feelings and act all stoic and tough, and then that attitude was amped up by a hundred over the fact that he was a cop. Whenever something was wrong, her father either minimized it with a funny line or simply sank into epic denial mode.

So when he said there had been “a little accident with a cigarette”, of course Meg imagined her childhood home burned to the very ground.

“Are you sure everything is okay?” she interrupted her father’s rant.

“Yes, everything is fine,” Mr. Masters said in the whiny tone of a child who was tired of his mother reminding him to take a jacket. “The cat has some hairs singed, and my armchair got a little scorched, but that was it!”

“Uh-huh,” Meg rolled her eyes.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me, young lady,” Mrs. Masters scolded her. “Although, you know… if you’d like to make plans with your friends to go on a little trip somewhere instead of coming home, that’s totally okay. It’s going to be a long month of replacing carpets and repainting walls over here.”

“I knew it!” Meg exclaimed, triumphant. “Where are you staying?”

There was a long silence, like her father was struggling with himself, and then he admitted:

“At Missouri’s.”

“How bad was it?”

“None of my books got burned,” said Mr. Masters, and of course he would measure the gravity of the situation not by the fact he was practically homeless but by how much of his reading material survived. “Well, except that monstrosity I was reading, but no love lost there.”

“Dad…”

“Yes, the insurance covers everything,” Mr. Masters said. “Well, most of it. About that trip? Make sure it’s not too fancy.”

Meg hit her forehead against the nearest wall.

“Yeah, okay,” she sighed. “I’ll talk to the administration and see if I can just stay here in campus…”

“No, come on!” Mrs. Masters protested. “There really isn’t somewhere you could go? Maybe with what’s-his-name… Sam?”

“Nah, that nerd is going home,” Meg replied. “You know… because he still has one.”

“You totally still have a home!” Mrs. Masters said, offended. “The walls are a little blackened, but… wait, aren’t you dating him? ‘Cause you’re dating someone, aren’t you?”

“No, dad, we’re just friends,” Meg said. Then, after a moment, she felt compelled to add: “There is… one other guy.”

“I knew it!” her dad exclaimed in the exact same triumphant tone she had used. “How long have you’ve been with him?”

“We’re not exactly… it’s complicated,” Meg continued, feeling the blood rushing to her face and remembering the first time a boy picked her up to take her to the homecoming dance. Seriously, what was it with the teenage reactions? “Don’t tell Tom that, he’s going to do a background check on him and find yet more reasons for me not to date him.”

“No, he won’t,” Mr. Masters snickered. Then he went quiet. “Okay, I won’t tell him. You like this guy?”

Meg bit her nails. If there was someone she could talk about this with, it was her dad and that’s why she had been so anxious to go see him. But now, well…

She looked at the little, pale stars that appeared on the sky, their lights drowned by the nearby city.

“Against my better judgment,” she said.

It was a phrase Mr. Masters used a lot, when he allowed his children to take the car or gave them permission to stay up late. It meant he wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but he had decided to trust them. And really that summed up Meg’s feelings about the whole deal: she had decided she wouldn’t make Sam’s mistakes and admitted she liked Castiel, but she didn’t know if her still remnant antipathy for him was even greater.

“Well, I say go for it,” her father encouraged her. “At the very least, he’ll break your heart and that’ll only make you more interesting.”

Meg scoffed and shook her head. But she did feel like there was a way out of all this mess after all.

 

* * *

 

She spent the following day fretting. She must have started the text she meant to send to Castiel a thousand times and then erased it again, because it was either too informal, or too serious, or too idiotic, or just… _something_. She didn’t know what to write to not sound desperate or too interested or like she had just found and excuse and… ugh.

After roaming around her room for several minutes, she ended up calling him. It was an anomaly for them. Meg reserved the phone calls for people like her father or Sam and texted Castiel because it was the most impersonal form of communication she could think of.

But this time, impersonality just wouldn’t do.

“Hello?”

His gruff voice sounded even deeper on the phone, and Meg was taken aback for a couple of seconds by how the hairs in the back of her head stood to attention.

“Hi, it’s me,” she said. Of course it was her, who else could it be? _Get it together and cut to the chase, Masters_. “Something happened at home, and I can’t go there. Is the road trip to the lake still up?”

It was Castiel’s turn to remain in stunned silence for so long Meg had to look at the phone to make sure the call hadn’t ended.

“Yes!” he exclaimed, finally, and then cleared his throat. “I mean, yes, absolutely. Of course. We can leave on Friday…”

“We have classes on Friday,” Meg reminded him. “And Sam will kill me if I miss the study group again.”

“Saturday morning, then?” Castiel suggested. He sounded as excited as kid who had just been told they were going to stop at his favorite ice cream shop on the way back home. “I can pick you up around eight. We can buy something on the way and have lunch there…”

“Fine,” Meg replied. “Anything especial I should bring or…?”

“No, no,” Castiel interrupted her. Then he started talking really fast: “I checked the forecast, and it seems the weather is going to be pleasant all week. Maybe if you want to bring a bathing suit; that’d be…”

Meg finally had her epiphany. It didn’t feel like a big one, like she thought it was going to be, but more like finding a really simple solution to a very obvious puzzle or figuring out who the killer was in the middle of the book; the kind of revelation that left her feeling like an idiot for not seeing it all before.

“You’ve been planning this for quite some time, haven’t you?”

Castiel’s voice trailed off. Meg pictured him toying with his glasses like she had seen him do during the mock trials or exams when he was trying to find the answer… not that she had stopped to look at him in such times.

“Was I so conspicuous?” he asked, in the end.

“Let’s just say I’ve changed my mind about getting you as a poker partner,” Meg said, amused. “You show your cards as soon as things start going your way.”

Castiel chuckled. “Maybe,” he admitted. “But it hasn’t exactly been easy for things to go my way with you. So maybe I deserve a moment of excitement.”

Meg didn’t want to ask what he meant by that, so she stayed in silence.

“Listen, Meg,” Castiel said, after it was obvious she had nothing to respond to that. “I…”

“Don’t,” she stopped him. “We are not having this conversation on the phone. And we are not having it on your cottage. We’re just going to go there and have a good time, and then we can talk about it on the way back. Is that okay with you?”

“Since when do you consult what I’m and I’m not okay with?” Castiel asked, mockingly.

“Answer the question, Clarence,” Meg said, exasperated.

Castiel sighed deeply. He was probably taking off his glasses and rubbing his temples, because Meg knew that’s what he did when he was starting to get a headache.

“Sounds like a plan,” he said in the end.

“Good,” Meg nodded, even though the only ones there to see it were her books and Ruby’s chaos. “Then that’s all, I guess.”

Meg wondered if the phone company would charge her less for all the awkward silences in this conversation.

“So… what are you wearing?” Castiel joked.

“Goodnight, Clarence,” Meg said, rolling her eyes before ending the call.

She planned on going to bed, but she stayed on her spot for several seconds, just smiling to herself like a fool.

 

* * *

 

On Saturday morning, Sam waited with her outside the dorm wing, even though he probably should’ve just started walking to catch the bus in time.

“Are you sure about all this?” Sam asked her. “I mean…”

“Don’t worry about me,” Meg said, shaking her head. “If I end up killing him, there’d be a lake right there to dump his body.”

“And you’ve just made me a witness to establish premeditation,” Sam sighed. “Great.”

Meg shook her head and then looked up at her friend (which was the only way to look at him, since he was so abnormally tall).

“Things have changed,” she said. “I don’t know exactly how much, but… it’s not what it used to, and we need to figure it out.”

“Alright,” Sam said. “I’m going to trust you.”

“Against your better judgment,” Meg joked, and although Sam didn’t get all the implications of the phrase, he still nodded. “And how about you? How are you holding up?”

“You mean because of Jess?”

Meg hadn’t meant that, but it was no surprise Sam’s mind jumped to that exact place. He started rambling about how “it hadn’t been all that big of a deal” and how he “was totally over it, really,” until Castiel showed up in a large, silver car that glimmered under the sun, interrupting them. He got out wearing a pair of dark glasses and Meg couldn’t hold back the laughter.

“Are you serious right now?”

“What?” Castiel asked, pulling the sunglasses up and placing them on top of his head with an arrogant grin. “It’s a long drive and it’s going to be a very bright day.”

“You’re such a show-off,” Meg replied. She went to pick up her bag, but Castiel was faster: in two strides he was by her side, and before she could protest, he was already closing the trunk.

“Sam,” Castiel greeted him. His tone could have sound cold to someone who didn’t know better, but Meg was certain he was being so succinct because he couldn’t wait to start the trip.

“Well, I’ll see you after the break,” Meg told Sam with a quick hug. “Say hi to your family for me. Tell your mom I appreciate the care packages.”

“Will do,” Sam promised. Meg thought he would leave right then, but he stayed in the street, hands on his pockets until the car took a curve and Sam disappeared from their sight.

“You two are very close,” Castiel observed as they left the campus behind.

“He’s like the second older brother I didn’t want,” Meg said, rolling down the window and sticking her head out. She knew her hair would get all tangled, but it was better than to suffer the heat that was beginning to rise inside the car. And besides, Castiel was right: it was a bright, beautiful day after a long, freezing winter. Meg wanted to soak in as much sunlight as it was possible.

The buildings and the people rushing on the streets were quickly replaced by single houses with perfectly mowed yards. There were children throwing footballs at each other and teenage girls in bathing suits resting on deck chairs, trying to get tanned. Summer was still months away, but that early March Saturday was a perfect announcement for it.

Meg stuck her hand out of the window and moved it up and down in the wind, like a plane. It was a habit she had since she was a child, and she didn’t realize she was doing it until Castiel spoke again.

“Do you want to put some music?” he asked, as they left Landbrooke’s suburbs behind and reached the road.

“Sure,” Meg said, opening the glove compartment. “Let’s see what you got.”

Some CD’s fell on her lap and she started passing them with a little frown. There was Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Mozart’s Piano Concertos, Chopin’s Piano Sonata Number 2…

“Don’t you have something with vocals here?” Meg asked.

“I think there’s a Schumann’s opera there somewhere…”

“I mean of this century,” Meg clarified. “Preferably in English.”

Castiel opened his mouth and then closed it again, confused.

“This music is very beautiful, Meg,” he said, in the end. “I believe it transcends languages themselves.”

“Yeah, sure,” Meg replied, with a scoff. “If you want to go with that.”

“What are you trying to say?” Castiel asked, slowly.

“Nothing,” she replied, looking outside the window at the posts they passed by and the infinite sky in front of them. “Nothing at all.”

“Very well…”

“Just wondering if you actually like this sort of thing or if you just listen to it ‘cause it makes you feel important,” Meg said.

His hands clenched on the wheel. Meg knew it was a stupid thing to tease him about, but they were less than an hour in on this trip and it already seemed unnatural she wasn’t making him squirm in some way. Castiel also probably knew the most mature thing to do was not respond to Meg’s provocations, so he didn’t. He resisted three whole minutes before making a comeback.

“Are you saying I am just some sort of musical snob?” he asked, through greeted teeth.

“Oh, of course not,” Meg said. Her voice was dripping with sarcasm. “Just that you could update your collection a little bit.”

“Why?” Castiel groaned. “The quality of music composition decayed greatly after the second part of the nineteenth century…”

“And that’s about the snobbiest thing I’ve heard you say,” Meg pointed out, with a chuckle. “And oh, God, have I heard you say snobby things.”

“That is not true!” Castiel protested. “When have I ever…?”

“First time we talked to each other,” Meg reminded him. “You were trying to send Red Riding Hood’s mother to jail.”

“Yes, because she deserved it!” Castiel argued. A little vein started getting red in his neck. “How many times are we going to have this discussion?”

“As many times as it takes for you to recognize you’re a privileged bastard who doesn’t even care to think about other people’s circumstances,” Meg replied, raising her voice just a little.

“I don’t judge them by the circumstances,” Castiel replied, taking his eyes off the road to throw Meg a furious look. “I judge them by their actions.”

“And have you ever stopped to think that maybe their actions are prompted by their circumstances?” Meg replied. “Not everything is black and white, Clarence.”

“Maybe, but once I have formed an opinion; I’m not in the habit to recant from it.”

“Okay, I stand corrected,” Meg said, raising her hands. “ _That_ is the most…”

A loud honk drowned her words. There’s was a strangled yelp that Meg would later find out came out of her throat as she noticed the big red truck coming directly at them. Castiel maneuvered the wheel and the car brusquely swerved off the freeway just in time. The tires screeched on the pavement and the truck passed them by, barely grazing them.

They both stayed completely quiet for once, panting heavily and staring into the void for several seconds. Then Castiel practically jumped over to the passenger seat, trapping Meg between his arms. In one swift movement, he reclined the seat and started ravaging her mouth, mercilessly biting her lips and pushing her down under the weight of his body. Meg responded by pulling handfuls of his hair, scratching the back of his head and lassoing a leg around his. The space was too reduced to actually do anything, but the friction and the pounding of their hearts beating side by side came as a much welcomed relief.

“Why?” Castiel muttered when they managed to let got a little of each other. “Why did it have to be you?”

Meg didn’t answer. She knew exactly what Castiel meant, because she was thinking the exact same thing. Her better judgment had obviously flown out of the window several miles ago.

After a few more seconds of processing they could have died from all their fighting, Castiel clumsily returned to his place, almost kicking the dashboard and elbowing Meg in the face in the process. She straightened the seat.

“How about a truce until we can argue in less life-threatening circumstances?” Meg proposed.

“Agreed,” Castiel said, and started the car again.


	11. Change of Status

Castiel turned off the engine and Meg stared up from her window, dumbstruck.

“You’re kidding,” she said.

“What?” Castiel asked.

They had passed several big houses on their way there, but this one had to be the biggest one. The two-story house had grey stone walls with emerald green vines creeping all over them. It had big windows and a small balcony on the front. The front yard was crowded by lush trees that didn’t seem to care the spring had only just began.

Castiel opened the heavy wooden door, and Meg stepped inside a wide, luminous lunge, adorned in white and golden tones on the carpet, curtains and furniture. The only two items that didn’t match the rest of the room were the big plasma TV and the lustrous black piano next to the staircase.

“You lied to me!” Meg accused Castiel, looking around with wide eyes.

“I… most certainly didn’t,” Castiel said, putting the bags on the floor and frowning, like he wasn’t very sure if he should be offended or not.

“You said it was a small cottage,” Meg reminded him. “This is not _small_!”

Castiel glanced up, clearly reconsidering the house’s dimensions for the first time in his life.

“Well, it’s a tad smaller than the one we have on the beach,” he commented.

It was the casual tone in which he said it that spiked Meg’s shock.

“Oh, of course!” she said, in a high pitched tone to better transmit her sarcasm. “Just a tad smaller!”

Castiel tilted his head. “What is the problem?” he asked. Instead of irritated, he sounded like he was holding back his laughter.

“I don’t know,” Meg said sincerely. “I mean, I always knew you were rich. I just didn’t know you were, well…” She extended her arms to encompass the whole space of the cottage. “… _rich_.”

Castiel stared at her, his blue eyes moving around her face like he was trying to solve a very complicated puzzle.

“I don’t think I understand correctly the point you’re trying to make,” he said, in the end.

Meg couldn’t decide if Castiel was pulling her hair or not. He had his poker face on, so there was no way to tell if his confusion was genuine or politely feigned.

“Y-You know what? Never mind,” she sighed. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Upstairs, end of the hall, last door on the left,” he indicated. “Make yourself at home. I’ll go to the town and buy some groceries. It’ll be only twenty minutes or so. Anything special you wish?”

“No, just… pick whatever you want,” Meg said, still not completely recovered.

Castiel left and Meg waited a couple seconds more to take in the place around her. There was an enormous bookshelf covering an entire wall, and as always, she was drawn towards immediately. Some photographs rested in front the books, showing Castiel and two other guys (his brothers, she deduced, because they all looked way too young to be his father) smiling as they held up an enormous silver fish, and another one with Professor Moore and a brunette girl in sunglasses sitting at a deck and laughing. Professor Moore must really be close friend of the family, Meg thought before turning her attention to the books.

Most of the heavy tomes had their spines creased, like they had been handled and read by many different persons for several years. Mr. Masters would’ve approved of that. Meg grabbed one randomly and opened it. The pages were yellowish and fragile, and they smelled like dust. It was the second book of what appeared to be an encyclopedia about musicians and their lives. The page in front of her showed a picture of a young man with curly hair and a prominent chin that the caption identified as Frédéric Chopin. The letters were small and a little blurry, but Meg still made out the story about Chopin meeting writer George Sand and being absolutely repelled by her before they became lovers.

“Well, join the club, Freddie,” she muttered to herself, putting the book back in its place.

The bathroom was just as fancy and over the top as the rest of the cottage, with silver faucets and a shower curtain adorned with daisies. She knew it was supposed to look elegant and such, but she found it impersonal and a tiny depressing.

After she freshened up, she changed her jeans and shirt for a dress. She had brought a lot of those, not planning to spend her week hiding her skin.

The last door on the right, in front of the bathroom, was the master bedroom. Meg forced herself to not glance at the bed (king-sized, full of cushions and pillows and with a creamy bed spread) and went for the balcony instead. The lake appeared in front of her, round and glistening under the midday sun. There was a white path that went from the back door of the cottage to the small deck that appeared in Professor Moore’s photo. There was a boat tied to it, barely big enough for two people to fit in it. With the next house hidden from sight by the trees, anyone could fantasize they were alone in the world there.

Meg leaned on the rail and just breathed in the cool breeze, mesmerized. She never had the chance to go to places like these, and if she had a house like that, she wouldn’t leave it for the world.

There were some footsteps behind her, and a second later, Castiel’s arms were wrapped around her waist. He left a ghost kiss on the side of her neck, and Meg closed her eyes, feeling completely at ease for the first time since Christmas.

“You hungry?” Castiel asked.

“Not particularly,” she shrugged.

“Good.”

Castiel turned her around, cupped her face between his hands and kissed her. Meg had to hold on to his neck for dear life, because her knees were suddenly weak. Castiel’s hand roamed her back, for a moment, before one found its place over her ass and the other one, buried deep in her hair.

“’Cause I’m in the mood for finishing what we started in the car.”

“What you have in mind?” Meg panted.

She was ever so glad she asked.

Castiel leaned down and picked her up almost effortlessly, and that should not have been as criminally hot as it was. With any other person, Meg would’ve protested at being carried like a child, and she probably would have panicked as soon as her feet stopped touching the ground. But not with him. It was always different with him.

He delicately left her on the bed and untied the straps of her dress. Meg had opted out of putting on a bra, but Castiel didn’t protest. In fact, he lowered his mouth and took one of Meg’s nipples in it, swirling his tongue around it, making her whimper.

“Cas…”

She extended a hand towards his shirt, pulling it to indicate she wanted him to take it off. Castiel brushed it aside and continued with what he was doing, teasing her and sucking gently until Meg was a writhing mess underneath him.

“Are you… are you going to fuck me or what?” she asked, impatiently raising her hips to get some friction.

Castiel threw his head back and stared at Meg like she had just laid out a life-changing dilemma.

“Or what,” he decided in the end.

Then, deliberately slow, he left a trail of kisses all across her collarbone, descending between her breast and all the way down to her navel. At which point he had to let go of Meg’s wrists, but she was so completely out of her mind she didn’t even realize until he was already pulling her panties down.

“What are you…?”

A loud moan escaped her throat before she could finish the question.

Castiel had just very delicately parted her legs to have better access to her pussy, and he was placing kitten licks around her clit. Meg clutched the covers and bit her lips, because what she really wanted to do was screaming embarrassingly loud for him to hurry it up. But Castiel had no intention to do that whatsoever. He replaced his tongue with his thumb, massaging Meg’s sweet spot as he moved lower still. He let Meg rest her legs on his shoulders while he opened her up for him, sliding his tongue as deep as it would go inside her slit.

Meg couldn’t take it anymore. She let out the string of curse words and moans she was holding inside her throat. Her voice, broken from the pleasure she was feeling, echoed on the room and she was sure she could be heard from miles around, but she didn’t care. She came with her whole body shaking and sweating, her vision going blurry as she gripped onto Castiel’s hair with fury.

 _And he kept going_. He kept going, relentless and determined, moving his tongue in circles and upside down, like he was trying to drink up all of Meg had to offer in one swallow; he kept going at it until Meg was red in the face and coming a second time, and then a third time, and then…

“Cas!” she called, her voice almost hoarse. “Stop, stop! I… I can’t…”

Castiel immediately raised his head. His lips were read and glistening from Meg’s juices and it was such an obscene sight she would have come again if she was completely spent and breathless.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Shut… shut up,” Meg stammered. “Oh, God, shut up.”

There were tears streaming down her face as tried to collect herself. Castiel touched her shoulder and instinctively Meg turned around and nuzzled his neck. He held her close, running his fingers through her hair. It still took a couple of minutes until Meg was able to make a bit of sense.

“A little warning next time?” she groaned, with her face still hidden on the crook of Castiel’s neck.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was… unpleasant to you?”

“No, no,” Meg gasped. “That was very pleasant… just… I wasn’t prepared.”

She didn’t need to see Castiel’s face to know he was frowning in confusion. Finally, he went with his go-to phrase:

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Some other lover must have done this for you before, yes?”

Meg didn’t answer. She was suddenly had the revelation she had been dating all the wrong guys her entire life.

“They have not?!” Castiel asked, scandalized.

“Shut up,” she replied, raising her head. “It’s not like I didn’t _ask_ them to. They always demanded something that defied the laws of gravity or human anatomy in return. It’s not funny, Clarence.”

Castiel continued to chuckle anyway. Meg glared at him.

“Well, and what are you going to ask for?” she shot him.

Castiel delicately took her hand and guide it inside her jeans. Meg expected to find him all hard and ready to go, but instead, he was completely flaccid and there was a suspicious stain in his boxers. He had come untouched just for going down on her. Meg’s surprise must have reflected on her face, because he smirked (he was so pleased with himself, what an asshole) and used Meg’s stunned silent to roll away and sit on the edge of the bed.

“I’m thinking we should have some pizza for lunch,” he commented, in the most casual tone. Meg grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him back on the bed. Castiel didn’t protest when she took off his shirt and his jeans.

“I don’t want lunch,” she told him, while kicking the covers aside. “I want to take a nap.”

“Isn’t it a little early for that…?”

“Are you going to come here and cuddle me or do I have to pillage the house for extra pillows?” she asked, already closing her eyes. To her satisfaction, she felt Castiel’s arm around her a second later and a light kiss on the top of her head.

“Apparently, it’s a day for firsts,” Castiel commented.

“You talk too much for someone who could be putting his mouth to lots of better uses,” she replied.

“Well, then, I’ll be happy to put my mouth wherever you want me to in the future.”

“You can say the sweetest things sometimes, Clarence,” Meg sighed.

 

* * *

 

They woke at a weird hour of the afternoon when it was too late for lunch, and yet too early for dinner, so they decided to kill some time by staying in bed and have lazy sex. Then they had a loud argument on what toppings they should put on the pizza and ended up making out against the counter. Meg was pretty certain that routine wasn’t going to be good for their blood pressure, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

When the sun started to go down, Castiel produced a pair of deck chair and they went to sit by the lake, with the rest of the pizza and a pair of champagne glasses they used to drink orange soda.

“Mother would be appalled if she saw the use we are making of her luxury glassware,” Castiel said, as he drank up.

“Then it’s a good thing she ain’t here,” Meg commented, extending her glass for Castiel to pour some more. She fidgeted it with it while looking at the reddening sky and smiled. She felt at ease, far away from the college frantic rhythm, away from Sam and Ruby’s melodrama, away from everyone and everything. “It’s a good thing than no one is here,” she added, thinking out loud.

“Well, don’t mind me,” Castiel said, and Meg chuckled as she grabbed his hand. They stayed in silence while the stars appeared one by one.

“Why can’t it always be like this?” Meg sighed, finally. “You and I, just… enjoying ourselves without one of us trying to pick up a fight.”

“We always tend to fight with the people we love the most.”

Meg put her glass down. Slowly, she let go off Cas’ hand before he had time to realize what he had said. When he did, there was horror in his eyes.

“I didn’t… I didn’t mean to say… oh, God,” he babbled. “I’m sorry. I-I…”

Meg finally recovered from the shock and put on her most indifferent face.

“Motion to strike?” she suggested.

“Yes. Sustained,” Castiel sighed. “I…”

“I’m going to take a shower,” Meg announced, standing up. “And I think it’d be a good idea if we don’t talk for a couple of hours.”

She headed for the house without waiting for his answer. She only allowed herself to react once the door of the bathroom had closed behind her and the water was running. And what she did was sit on the toilet and cover her mouth with both hands to suffocate the squeals. She couldn’t believe he would just come out and say that. They agreed they weren’t going to talk about it until after the break. They… dammit.

Meg ripped her bathing suit off and stepped under the water, but it did nothing to wash away her anger. That just didn’t make any sense. She had already psychologically backed herself into a corner to admit Castiel was more than an occasional fuck and that had been _exhausting_. Why the hell did he have to bring love into that whole mess?

But she realized this time her anger wasn’t Cas’ fault, but her own insecurity as to where she was standing in this change of status of their relationship. So she decided to clear her head before she went off at him unprovoked.

She changed into the oversized shirt she used for sleeping and went to the room. It was completely dark now, and the lake waters were undulating lazily under the chill breeze. Meg jumped on the bed and lifted her bag with her, decided to lose herself in a fictitious murder until Castiel came up and she could pretend nothing out of the ordinary had happened. She found her cellphone before her book, and noticed she had several unread messages, all of them from Sam:

_> Did you get there okay?_

_> Do you have signal?_

_> Please, tell me nobody got stabbed._

_> Anyway, check with me when you get this._

She smiled and texted back:

_> Everything alright. No one’s been stabbed._

_> Yet._

Sam answered right before she found the page where she had stopped:

_> Deleting these messages. Don’t need incriminatory evidence in my phone._

Meg considered pointing out that there were ways to recover those messages anyway, but the forensic in the novel was about to explain how a healthy thirty year old man suddenly swelled up like a toad and died (Meg’s guess was poison) and that was far more interesting. Even though it did turn out to be poison.

She was so entertained by the victim’s horrible death and the detectives’ adventures she didn’t even noticed the music at first. She only heard it when she finished the chapter, after a particularly ominous scene that left a lingering silence in her head. There was a heavy, sad melody coming from downstairs, inundating the hallway and floating inside the room through the open door. Meg didn’t know who had written it, but she was willing to bet it had been a rather depressed person. But she still couldn’t deny it called to her.

She tiptoed down the hall, barefoot, and stood on top of the staircase. She sat, stretching her legs through the railing’s bars and letting them hang down. From there, she could make out the outline of Castiel’s back in front of the piano. His long, graceful fingers danced lazily over the keyboard, and Meg noticed he didn’t have a music sheet in front of him. She was tempted to close her eyes and focus on the music, but she found she could not tear her eyes from him, the way his shoulder blades move under his shirt, the way he tilted his head left and right, like he was floating far away from her.

Was this man ever going to stop surprising her?

The song ended on a soft, sweet note and Meg clapped, smirking when Castiel jumped of his seat, startled.

“Did you write that?” she asked.

“No, of course not,” he said, blushing. “It’s the _Claire du Lune_ , by Debussy. It’s a very well-known piece.”

“Well, it sounded really pretty,” Meg shrugged. “Are you coming to bed?”

Castiel was still stunned by her catching him playing, and he was even more confused by that question.

“I… I figured you would rather sleep alone,” he confessed, staring at his shoes and then back up at her. He had never looked more like a lost kitten.

“Now would I want that?” she asked, with a wink. She waited until Castiel got the hint and climbed the stairs to join her.


	12. Secrets

Meg was beginning to learn that the frequency and intensity of their fights only got to murderous threats and silent treatment levels when they were discussing matters of law and mock trials. The rest of the time, they always ended with them curled up on the couch or laughing until they were breathless.

“Well, you are a hypocrite and a liar!” Meg yelled at him once. The accusation seemed to unbalanced Castiel. Whatever comeback he was about to quip died in his lips as he frowned at Meg, the very image of confusion.

“What do you mean?” he asked in the end, trying to sound irritated, but too thrown off to pull it off.

“You said you didn’t listen to music past the first half of the nineteenth century!” Meg said, jabbing a finger in his chest. “And Debussy wrote the _Claire de Lune_ in 1905! I researched it!”

It sounded way less absurd in her head, but at this point in the fight she was pretty much grasping at straws, so she didn’t take it back. Castiel stared at her like he couldn’t quite decide if she was kidding him or not, and then let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like a giggle.

“Don’t laugh,” she warmed him, and that only made the fake cough increase. “I said don’t laugh!”

“Ob… objection,” he panted, between chuckles. “Relevance.”

“Shut up,” Meg said, red-faced and turning her back on him. A second later Castiel was hugging her. She tried to shake him off but he kissed her in the temple, and as always, she melted at the warmth of his lips. “Fine, it was stupid. That still doesn’t make you right.”

“Of course not, of course not,” he nodded, docilely. “Uh… what we were fighting about again?”

Meg pondered about it, and a second later she had to admit she didn’t remember.

Most of the five days they spent at the cottage were peaceful. Well, as peaceful as it could be between them, but as she kept reporting back to Sam, no one got bloodily killed.

On the mornings, they swam on the crystalline water or rowed the boat to middle of the lake. Castiel fished (though he never caught anything) and Meg read her mystery novel. Every once in a while, they saw another boat passing by, but they merely waved at them and kept their distance, so it was only the two of them. They went back in around twelve and made lunch: nothing fancy, just pasta or junk or anything microwavable. Castiel insisted that wasn’t healthy. Meg retorted they should stuff their faces with as much alcohol and unhealthy food as they could while they were young and able to burn it through exercise.

“I’m not sure that’s how it works…”

“Eat your pizza, Clarence.”

In the evenings, they took naps on the couch or simply lounged about. Castiel played the piano for her, sometimes dropping a name of a composer or the other. She enjoyed laughing at his frustrated face when she was utterly unimpressed at his music trivia knowledge, not knowing that she looked up everyone he mentioned on the dusty encyclopedia until he caught her one afternoon.

“That’s cheating!” he complained. Meg put the book back in its place and raised an eyebrow.

“Well, it’s not technically illegal,” she said, defiant. “What are you gonna do about it?”

Castiel kissed her fiercely, tossed her over his shoulder and carried her to the bed. She didn’t expect that, but she wasn’t about to protest.

They didn’t sleep a lot at night. Not because they were having sex (although there was far more than a little of that), but because the nights were always so pleasant they felt compelled to get a blanket and go sit on the deck to count the stars. The skinny-dipped once, but the water was colder than they expected and they came back inside immediately shivering, and promised to never do that again through chattering teeth.

Most nights, they stayed on the big master bed, curled up next to the other while the wind gently blew the curtains of the balcony, and they talked.

“Father expects me to join the firm, like my brothers did, once I graduate,” Castiel complained once, sticking his tongue out in a grimace. “Novak, Novak, Novak and Novak. I’d be the fourth Novak.”

“Well, it must be nice to have some sort of clarity about your future, _legacy_ ,” Meg told him, annoyed at his ungratefulness. “I don’t have any sort of contacts or people that can recommend me to someone. I’ll have to make my way up from the freaking bottom.”

“As hard as that may sound, at least you’ll have the freedom to make it in your own terms,” Castiel replied, with that low growl that indicated she had managed to irritate her. “Father is not going to give me much of a choice, even though I’ve told him I’d much rather work at the District Attorney’s office or maybe teach, like my mother does.”

“Wait, your mother is a professor?” Meg said. The photo downstairs, of Professor Moore and the brunette girl suddenly flashed in her memory. “She’s… you’re Naomi’s son?!” she asked raising her head.

Castiel blinked. “I thought you knew that?” he said.

Meg stared at him in horror, ready to protest that he looked nothing like her and how was she supposed to know when they had different surnames…

“So, wait, then Jess is…”

“My cousin,” Castiel said, slowly. “My mother’s brother’s daughter.”

“I know what a cousin is!” Meg grumbled.

There was a whole new world of possibilities opening up right in front of her now. She could ask him about Jess’ decision to break ties with Sam. She could appeal in her friend’s behalf. Sam wouldn’t have to mop around the campus like a kicked puppy anymore.

But she decided to save that conversation for later. Right now, it was completely about them, and she didn’t want to kill the mood.

Castiel seemed to be of the same opinion because he kept asking all sort of stupid questions, like whether she preferred cats or dogs or who was her favorite author or what on earth did she listen to if she didn’t like classical music.

“What’s all this about?” she asked, a little irritated by the tone in which he asked the last one.

“Well, I realize I don’t know any of these things about you,” Castiel shrugged. “And I want to know them.”

Meg scoffed and looked away, pretending that didn’t bother her. They were at the deck, drinking soda from champagne glasses again and enjoying the beautiful night.

“Tell me something nobody else knows about you,” Castiel asked.

Meg sighed as she readjusted her body to creep closer to him.

“My best friend was murdered.”

She was hoping that would shut him up, and it did, for a few seconds at least.

“Okay,” he nodded. “How did that come to happen?”

Meg drank the last drops of her soda. She hated that story, but she had no one to blame but herself for beginning to tell it.

“Her name was Lilith,” she told him. “We were eight years old.”

Every time she thought of Lilith, she always remembered her in her favorite pink dress; the one Meg had accidentally spilled Coke on during her birthday party. Lilith had hugged her and told her she forgave her. She had tons of other dresses, since her mother sewed them for her. She’d had bright blonde hair and a little space between her front teeth.

“The dentist said next year he’s going to have to put braces on them,” she’d told Meg during a slumber party. She’d looked horrified. “But I don’t want him putting things in my mouth!”

Lilith had never got her braces done. She’d disappeared way before that.

“We usually walked from the bus station hand in hand. It was two blocks away from my house, and three away from hers,” Meg said. “One day we said goodbye in front of my fence, like always… and she never made it home.”

Meg remembered the cops that had interrogated her and how helpless she’d felt when she couldn’t give them any useful information. She remember the search parties around the neighborhood, all the nights her father came home late, and how the rumors in school had started spreading that Lilith’s mom spend the days in bed crying.

“Then, months afterwards, a kid was playing fetch with his dog near a river, miles away from our town,” Meg continued. “And the dog came back with a piece of pink fabric instead of a ball.”

Lilith’s murderer had tied her body to a heavyweight and dumped her in the river, but the current had dragged her anyway.

“Did they ever catch who did it?” Castiel asked.

“Nope,” Meg said. “She had been dead for a long time, probably ever since around the day she disappeared. The water had washed away any useful evidence. They couldn’t even determine the cause of death.”

“You seem to have an awful lot of information about the case for something that happened when you were so young,” Castiel pointed out.

“That’s because I snuck into my dad’s office and read the file,” Meg confessed. “I didn’t even understand most of what I was reading, but it stuck in my head. Do we have something a little stronger?” she asked, waving her empty glass in front of him. Castiel dragged the cooler closer and opened a bottle of beer.

“I’m guessing that’s not the end of the story,” he said, as he passed it to Meg.

“Lilith’s parents move away,” Meg continued, after taking a sip. “I don’t know what happened to them. Most couples divorce after losing a child. I like to believe they made it. Parents kept their children on a shorter leash for a long time. Hell, Dad started waiting for me at the bus stop, and the days he couldn’t make it, he ordered Tom to do it. And then there was Rufus.”

Rufus Turner had been sort of a lovable crazy that lived on house that was falling apart on the outskirts of town. He kept to himself, never bothered anyone. He got drunk every once in a while in the town’s bar, but everybody did that now and then. Yet, because he was solitary and eccentric (and probably also because he was black), people had begun murmuring and imagining Lilith’s blood in his hands.

“A riot almost rained down on him once,” Meg told him. “Some guys at the bar who had been drinking too much were saying that they should go kick his ass for what he did to Lilith. Ellen, the bartender, caught wind of it and called my dad. He alerted Rufus, and by the time the vigilantes showed up, he had bailed, so they settled for setting his house on fire.”

“That’s horrible!” Castiel exclaimed.

“Human beings in a mob,” Meg shrugged. “We never knew what happened to Rufus either, but him running away only cemented the idea that he did it.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think he was just a slightly unbalanced old man who didn’t want to be set on fire,” she said. “I think people are often victims of their own prejudices and that they jump to wrong conclusions based on them. That’s why I want to be a defense lawyer. So people like Rufus don’t get burned, metaphorically or literally, for things they didn’t do.”

Castiel stroked his chin, like he was giving serious consideration to what Meg had just said.

“That’s very noble, Meg,” he concluded. “Idealistic as hell, but noble.”

Meg scoffed. “I share a story I hadn’t told anyone before, not even Sam, and that’s your answer?”

“It’s a good story,” Castiel said. “Why don’t you?”

Meg muttered something incomprehensible.

“What’s that?”

She raised her eyes, irritated: “I said, because I don’t want people telling me I’m idealistic. Stop laughing at me, Castiel.”

As usual, Castiel hid his chuckles with a fake coughing fit.

“What a match,” he concluded. “The legacy and the idealistic girl.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

They toasted under the moon light.

 

* * *

 

Meg woke up on Friday morning with heaviness in her chest. It might have been because that would be the last entire day they’d spent on the cottage, as they would be going back to campus the following afternoon. Or it might have been because Castiel was sprawled on top of her, immobilizing her.

“Get off,” she murmured. Castiel groaned in protest and snuggled closer, until Meg pushed him away a little. “Do you always pester the people you sleep with like this?”

“Only the ones who keep stealing all the sheets,” Castiel replied, still not moving an inch.

“Ugh, you’re so annoying,” Meg protested. “I hate you.”

Castiel opened his eyes and smirked at her. “Yes, I know you do.”

“Don’t you dare kiss me with morning breath,” Meg warned him when he moved closer to her. “I will hit you, Castiel.”

Castiel shook his head, amused, and finally rolled away from her. “Pancakes?”

“Sounds good,” Meg yawned. She was about to doze off again when she heard a melody floating from downstairs. “Why are you playing the piano this early in the morning? I want pancakes.”

“I’m not,” he replied. “I’m right here.”

That woke her right up. Castiel was standing in the middle of the room, with his jeans unbuttoned and his eyebrows raised in a confused expression that Meg imagined mirrored hers.

“Then who the hell’s playing?” she asked, leaving the bed as well.

“Good question,” Castiel nodded, as he finished getting dress. “I’ll go see.”

“Wait!” Meg fished the dress she’d been wearing the day before from the floor. “It could be dangerous. I’ll go with you.”

“Right, because a thief is going to stop to play the piano,” Castiel sneered.

“Maybe not a thief, but I wouldn’t discard an axe-wielding maniac.”

“You’ve been reading too much of those mystery novels,” he said. “And besides, what could you possibly do in that scenario?”

Meg crossed her arms across her chest. “Hello. Cop daughter here.”

She decidedly walked towards the door without waiting to see if Castiel followed her. She heard him sigh loudly and she could almost picture him counting from ten in his head. Meg was not going to admit he was probably right and there’d be someone completely harmless downstairs, so she grabbed the first thing that she could use as a weapon on her way down: an umbrella from the stand at the end of the hallway.

“Really?” Castiel asked.

Meg was going to tease him about hiding behind her, but then the music stopped. A few seconds passed, and then the piece started again from the top. Castiel paled.

“Oh,” he muttered. “Oh, no.”

“What?” Meg asked, clutching the umbrella tighter at his distress. “Is it an axe wielding maniac you’ve encountered before?”

“Worse,” Castiel said. “It’s my sister.”

He took the lead this time, and when he was in the middle of the staircase, he called: “Hael?”

“Oh, hey there, Castiel,” a sweet, cheerful voice came. She kept playing while talking, obviously not as needed for concentration as Castiel, who insisted that Meg be quiet while he played.

“How did you get here?” Castiel asked, in an exasperated tone of voice Meg had heard him use with her several times. “And why?”

“By bus and walking, and what does it look like?” Hael said, briskly. “I’m paying a visit to my favorite anti-social brother who didn’t come to see my concert.”

Castiel hit his forehead in his open palm.

“I already apologized for that,” he protested. “I got caught with my exams and…”

“Hello,” Meg said, stepping down. She just had to meet that girl. For the horror on Castiel’s face, if for nothing else.

Hael’s back (the only part of her Meg could see) straightened.

“Or perhaps not so anti-social,” she said. She played an ominous tune on the piano before spinning and showing Meg a bright smile. “Hi! Who would you be?”

“I’m Meg,” she said, jumping down the last steps gracefully and offering Hael her hand. She was wearing a red dress with a white flowers pattern. Up close, she looked a lot like Castiel, with the same raven hair and the bright blue eyes widening in surprise.

“No!” she exclaimed. “You’re Meg? _The_ Meg?”

“My… reputation precedes me?” Meg tried to joke. Hael roared with laughter.

“Are you kidding me? He won’t stop talking about you,” she said, pointing at Castiel with her thumb. “I can’t decide if you’re his worst enemy or if he’s madly in love with you.”

“She’s joking!” Castiel clarified hurriedly, with his neck flushing until it was the same tone as Hael’s dress. “It’s an annoying habit of hers. She picked it up from Gabriel.”

“Oh, but brother mine!” Hael clasped both hands against her chest, faking a scandalized gasp. “What will Mother say when she finds out your ‘quiet retreat for studying’ was actually a wild sexual escapade? It is a wild sexual escapade, yes?” she asked, turning to Meg.

“I wouldn’t say wild…” Meg said, with a little shrug. Castiel looked mortified.

“I’m going to murder you,” he declared, pointing a finger at Hael.

“No, you won’t. You know Father wouldn’t forgive you,” Hael said sticking her tongue out at him. “I’m the favorite.”

“He doesn’t have favorites,” Castiel replied, in the tired tone of someone who’d had that conversation a million times.

“Right. But if he did, I’d be it.”

 

* * *

 

On top of her knack for eliciting the most hilarious expressions from Castiel, Hael turned out to be an unstoppable force of nature. She practically kicked them out of the house, scolding them for eating nothing but junk food and prompting to go “have sex on the boat or whatever” while she cooked a proper meal for them.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel apologized for Meg. “I know she’s overbearing and…”

“I like her.”

“You… what?”

Castiel blinked incredulous at Meg’s grin.

“I like her,” she repeated.

The proper meal consisted on meat and vegetables, accompanied by a red wine Hael sneaked from their father’s cellar.

“Don’t make that face, Castiel,” she said as she poured three glasses. “I turned twenty-one last month.”

“Somehow I don’t believe Father will take that fact into account when he finds out you stole one of his favorites Cabernets,” Castiel commented.

“Maybe,” Hael winked at Meg. “But I’m a pampered little princess, and unlike him, _I_ can get away with murder.”

Truth be told, Meg laughed more at Castiel’s wincing than at Hael’s jokes.

After lunch, they moved the reunion to the lounge, where Hael proceeded to flop down on the couch and tell all the most embarrassing stories about Castiel, like the time he spent the night in the school’s auditorium because they forgot to check if there was someone there, or the time he accidentally died the dog blue.

“How… how did you even…?” Meg panted, between barks of laughter.

“I confused the shampoo bottles,” Castiel said, trying to maintain an ounce of dignity and failing spectacularly. “It could’ve happen to anyone.”

“Anyone stubborn enough to not admit they’re blind as a bat,” Hael retorted. “After that, Mother dragged him kicking and screaming to the ophthalmologist and they gave him those nerdy glasses.”

Meg was practically rolling on the carpet. She had never seen anyone getting so red in the face as Castiel was in that moment.

“Well, my job here is done,” Hael announced around six o’clock. “I better get going before I miss the last bus.”

“You’re not staying the night?” Meg asked, not even trying to hide her disappointment.

“Oh, no,” Hael put on her sandals again. “I came, I saw, I embarrassed my brother. I guess I can call it a day. Hey, Meg, why don’t you walk me to the bus station?”

“I could drive you there,” Castiel suggested.

“Or Meg could drive me there, if you’re at that stage in the relationship where you trust her with your car,” Hael said.

“Take the hint, Clarence,” Meg giggled. “She wants to talk girl stuff with me.”

“She wants to keep talking about me to further humiliate me,” Castiel groaned.

“No reason we can’t do both,” Hael said.

In the end Castiel caved in and agreed to let Meg take Hael to the station, not without a bunch of recommendations about when to accelerate or how to park the car.

“I know how to drive,” Meg rolled her eyes at him. Castiel still kept the keychain above his head and out of her reach.

“Promise you’ll only charge premium gas if you need it at all,” he said, horrified at the thought Meg could feed his car anything different. “Promise me, Meg.”

“Give them to me!”

There was another second of struggle, and then Castiel surrendered. Hael was chuckling uncontrollably while Meg sat in the driver’s seat, and they both waved at Castiel as they took the road.

“What an overgrown crybaby,” Meg complained.

“Yeah,” Hael agreed. “But he likes you a lot, I can tell.”

Meg didn’t know how to answer to that, so she didn’t.

“And don’t get me wrong, I know he can be a bit of an asshole sometimes,” Hael continued. “But when he really cares for someone, he’ll go the extra mile to protect them.”

“Really?” Meg asked, predicting another weird story about Castiel was about to come.

“Yeah. Like, with our cousin Jess, for example,” Hael said. “She was seeing this guy a few months ago, and he just kept beating around the bush about whether they were together or what. It really got Jess down, but she was going to wait forever because she was _way_ into him, you know? Castiel convinced her it wasn’t worth her time.”

“He did that?” Meg asked, forgetting to look at the road for a second.

“Oh, yeah. Jess wanted to keep talking to him, but Castiel told her the healthiest thing to do was to go radio silent on him,” Hael continued, unaware of the growing horror in Meg’s expression.

“I see,” she muttered. “Did he… did Cas mention who this guy was?”

“Just that he went to college with him,” Hael shrugged. “I think his name was something with an S. Seth? Sal?”

“Sam?”

“Yes!” Hael snapped her fingers, satisfied. “You know him?”

“Only a little,” Meg lied.


	13. Best Interest at Heart

Castiel was playing a happy, rather fast song on the piano when Meg came back.

“Hey,” he asked. “How’d it go?”

Meg didn’t answer at first. She left the keys on the coffee table and sat on the couch, watching Castiel’s back and trying to calm the turmoil in her head.

“Meg?” he insisted, in view of her silence. “Is everything alright?”

“You told Jess to break up with Sam.”

The words rolled off her tongue in a cold, almost clinical tone, like she was answering a question in class. Castiel stopped playing and turned around on the chair. His face was blank.

“Hael told you that?” he asked.

“Why, yes, who else could have?” Meg said, her tone even colder. “Since you conveniently forgot to mention it.”

Castiel looked down for a second, and Meg knew he was trying to come up with an answer. She also knew whatever he said wasn’t going to matter at all.

“I didn’t forget to mention it,” he affirmed. “I didn’t think it was relevant.”

“You didn’t think…?” Meg started to raise her voice, but stopped. She took a deep breath and promised herself she wasn’t going to lose it this time. “You didn’t think it was relevant to mention you are the cause my best friend is in complete misery?”

“Forgive me, but he didn’t seem all that affected to me after Jess stopped contacting him,” Castiel replied. There was scorn in his voice. If there hadn’t been, maybe Meg wouldn’t have got so furious.

“How would you know?” Meg blurted out. The blood rushed to her face and she swore she could hear it beating in her ears. “You weren’t the one who had to put up with his whining and his pretense of being fine. He was _destroyed_ , Castiel.”

“Is that so?” Castiel raised an eyebrow. “Well, you didn’t have to put up with Jess’ heartbreak when she realized your friend was fooling around with Ruby as well.”

“That is not…! How did you even get that idea?”

But as she was asking it, Meg realized: the Christmas reunion. Sam had been trying to get Ruby off his back the whole time; he didn’t even have a second to pay attention to Jess. And Meg was too concentrated drowning her own jealousy on beer to lend him a hand.

“That is not what happened,” Meg concluded, but her tone didn’t sound convince anymore.

“Maybe it isn’t,” Castiel shrugged. “And maybe Sam isn’t the saint you make him out to be. Have you considered that possibility?”

“Don’t you dare fucking tell me I don’t know him!” Meg replied, forgetting all her promises to not get mad in a split second. “He’s shy! He spent weeks working up the nerve to even talk to Jess! He never would have asked a girl out while screwing another, unlike someone I know.”

Castiel stood up. “I don’t have to listen to this,” he said, angrily. “I did what I did because I knew exactly how that situation could get very uncomfortable, and I wanted to spare Jess the same troubles we were going through…”

“Have you stopped to consider you had absolutely no right to do that?” Meg cut him off, standing up as well. “Our issues are our issues, and God knows we have a few. But Jess, Sam and Ruby’s issues were theirs to figure out, and now, because of your hypocritical dick move, they can’t. Awesome job, there.”

Castiel remained rooted to his spot, scowling at her from the other side of the lounge.

“I gave Jess an advice and she decided to follow it through,” he said. The tone of his voice could have frozen the entire lake outside. “I had her best interest at heart, just like you would’ve had Sam’s. So I’m not apologizing for that, if that’s what you expect.”

“Oh, I don’t expect anything,” Meg said, through gritted teeth. “This is exactly why I can’t stand you, Castiel. You put these little tags on people and you refuse to watch further than that. You won’t admit you’re wrong even when the evidence that you are is hitting you in the face.”

“Forgive me, are we still talking about me?” Castiel asked, raising his chin.

“At least I was _trying_ to see you for something other than the douche you are at first sight,” Meg replied. “I really wanted this to work out. I really wanted us to be _something_. But I can’t – I can’t be with the guy who royally screwed over my best friend.”

There. She’d said it. There was no taking it back now.

Of all the things she had shouted at him; that seemed to be the one who hit Castiel the hardest. His deadpan expression melted. His lips were parted, like a response had got caught in his throat, and his eyes went from cold to scared. Meg had no time to pick up on all those changes. She was too busy wiping away the one betraying tear that escaped her eye.

“I’m going upstairs now,” she announced.

“Meg…”

“Don’t. Don’t bother coming after me,” Meg interrupted him. “I don’t want to talk to you. We’re done.”

She managed to keep herself together until she closed the room’s door behind her. At which point, she grabbed a pillow and sank her face in it to scream out the rest of her anger and frustration.

 

* * *

 

The following day, Meg woke up at a criminally early hour and prepared her bag while the sun still hadn’t come out. She tiptoed downstairs, stopping for a moment to make sure Castiel wasn’t there, but he apparently had decided to take one of the spare rooms in the cottage. Of course he did. How cliché would’ve it been to find him sleeping on the couch?

She thought about leaving him a note, like she had on that winter morning after he’d helped out. But she wanted this to be final, so she left the cottage as silently as she could. She was familiar with the road to the town by now, and thanks to Hael, she also now knew the way to find the bus station. It was going to be a slow walk.

She hadn’t even made it a quarter of the way when a car purred behind her. She winced when she it.

“I said I didn’t want to talk to you,” she said, as he slowed down to ride by her side.

“Fine, don’t talk to me,” Castiel replied. He looked tired, like he hadn’t slept well the night before. “But at least let me drive you there.”

“By there you mean the bus station, yes?” Meg answered, begrudgingly. “Because I’m not making the trip back to campus with you.”

She caught a glimpse of his hurt face before it disappeared. They both knew what that meant. There’d be no new agreement. No change of status between them. Just this bitter parting of ways. And maybe Meg was being a little bit unfair, but she didn’t think she could take Castiel making excuses for his behavior. They were way past that point.

“Alright,” he agreed. “Only to the bus station.”

Meg got inside the car and looked outside the window, stubbornly refusing to face him. On his behalf, Castiel respected her wishes by keeping quiet until they parked.

“Well, I guess… I’ll see you around?” he asked, cringing.

“No,” Meg replied, simply and got off the car. She didn’t look back, so she didn’t know he stayed right where he was until she disappeared from sight.

 

* * *

 

There were three knocks on the dorm’s room, and when Meg opened, she found her overgrown puppy of a friend with a big grin in his face and carrying what appeared to be a large pie.

“Mom says at least someone appreciates the care packages,” Sam commented.

Meg breathed deeply. She had arrived on Saturday afternoon, and she had spent the rest of the day wallowing in regret and self-pity for all the things she could and couldn’t have done so things with Castiel had turned out differently. So seeing a familiar face carrying something sweet to help her eat their feelings was almost too much to bear.

“Oh, God, I’ve missed you,” Meg hugged him close.

“Oh… okay,” Sam said, confused, but returning the hug while juggling not to drop the pie. “I missed you too. I’m glad you didn’t murder anyone.”

“Not because I didn’t want to,” Meg muttered, as she received the pie and beckoned Sam to come inside. Her comment came out more bitter than funny, and Sam immediately realized she wasn’t in a good mood.

“That bad, huh?” he asked, dragging the desk chair to sit. He extracted two spoons from his jacket (which couldn’t be very hygienic) and offered one to Meg. “Tell me everything.”

Meg opened her mouth, and for a moment, she was tempted to. She wanted to tell him about the things she had found out about Jess, how Sam could stop feeling guilty about their failed relationship. But at the same time, that would be admitting she had been quite literally sleeping with the enemy. And what was even worse, it would give Sam hopes that there was still a chance for mending things with Jess and he would end up doing something stupid like calling her. Meg wouldn’t be able to stand seeing him crash and burn like that.

“There’s nothing to tell,” she said, sinking her spoon in the pie instead. “I mean, the sex was fun and all…”

“Okay, TMI,” Sam said, raising a finger.

“But we never would have made it work,” Meg continued, ignoring him.

“So it’s over?” Sam asked. “You’re not seeing him again?”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to see him on classes and such,” Meg rolled her eyes.

“You know what I mean,” Sam said, clenching his jaw. Meg laughed at his annoyance.

“Yeah, it’s over.”

Somehow hearing it out loud made it ten times more real. It made Meg want to cry, but before she could muster enough tears for that, the dorm’s room burst opened and in swaggered Ruby, with her ridiculous pink bags and a pair of sunglasses that she had no business wearing inside.

“Hello, darlings!” she exclaimed, and before Meg and Sam could react she ran towards them and lunged at Meg, making her fall on the bed. “I missed you!”

“Ruby… you’re choking me…”

“You have to tell me everything about your break,” she said, kissing Meg on both cheeks. Sam crunched in the chair (a ridiculously futile attempt giving his height), but Ruby showed no intentions of doing the same to him. “I brought gifts for both of you! They’re…” she looked around confused, and when she realized only the three of them were there, she stood up and went to the door. “Do you need help with the bags, baby?”

“No, I’ve got this!” came a male voice, and before Sam and Meg had time to exchange confused looks, Brady stumbled in, carrying what seemed to be a small country’s gross national income in shopping bags of varied sizes. “Where do you want them, dear?”

The first thing Meg wondered was how was Ruby going to fit that all inside her already exploding closet. The second thing was what the hell Brady was doing there and why was he and Ruby calling each other pet names.

“There on the bed is fine,” Ruby replied, with a smile and went to suck Brady’s face with such enthusiasm Meg heaved. “Thank you, you’re such a darling.”

“Anything for my baby,” Brady replied, and then gave a nod towards Meg and Sam. “You want to walk me outside to give me a proper kiss goodbye?”

“Of course.”

Sam and Meg looked at each other with identical confused expression as soon as the door closed behind the brand new couple.

“I’m gonna go with ‘ _how?_ ’” Sam said.

“I see your _‘how?’_ and raise you a _‘why?’_ ” Meg replied. “With just a dash of _‘I don’t really think I want to know.’_ ”

They were going to know anyway, because Ruby replied and flopped on her bed with a happy sigh.

“Oh, yes, Brady and I,” she said, answering to Sam and Meg’s stunned silence. “It turns out we decided to spend the break in the same beach. We didn’t know anybody, so we started hanging out and, well… it was a total random thing, but you know, I guess the best things in life are a bit random.”

“So you guys are… together?” Sam asked.

“Oh, Sammy, regretting the train you missed?” Ruby beamed beatifically, giving Sam a condescending pat in the cheek. “Don’t worry. You and I can still be friends.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Sam said.

“You do realize Brady has a reputation for being a major douche, right?” Meg pointed out.

Ruby scoffed, annoyed.

“Excuse me, but if you’ve had the sense not to judge people by their reputation, you would’ve pulled your own head out of your ass way sooner,” she replied. “And things wouldn’t be so fucked up between you and Castiel.”

“Ruby…” Sam began.

“No, she’s right,” Meg admitted, with a sigh. “She’s totally right.”

The room went quiet. Ruby looked alternatively at Meg and then at Sam.

“Did I miss something?” she asked, confused.

Meg was not in the mood to explain what’d happened again.

“Pie?” she offered, instead.

 

* * *

 

So life went on after that.

Or maybe it would be more correct to say that it turned into a reprise of the months before, only now it was Meg insisting everything was alright and Sam trying to get her to come out and talk.

“It was nothing, Sam,” she said, turning her attention back to the books spread over their library table. “I thought it could be a thing, but I was wrong. We just don’t belong.”

“Alright,” Sam nodded. “But when I asked if you wanted to talk about it, I meant the Thomas and Jackie Hawk murder trial.”

“Oh, that,” Meg said. “Yeah, that… that was the one without the bodies, yes?”

Sam closed his notebook very slowly.

“You want to talk about the other thing?”

“What other thing?” Meg asked, innocently.

Sam waited until Meg couldn’t pretend any longer she was reading about the case. She sighed deeply and also closed her notebook.

“Alright, let’s talk about the other thing,” she said. “It’s not like I can escape from you and go to my dorm. Ruby is probably having sex with Brady.”

“Ugh, they’re still at it?” Sam grimaced.

“I think she’s getting revenge for all the times I made her wait outside.”

Sam chuckled and kept waiting. Meg took a deep breathe.

“I’m relieved Professor Moore put an end to the mock trials so we can study,” she confessed. It was the most random idea that came to mind, but it still seem as good place to start as any. “’Cause that way I don’t have to see him.”

“What went wrong?” Sam wanted to know. “I mean, I know you guys don’t agree on much, but underneath all your petty fighting, I figured…”

“Underneath all our petty fighting was some actual serious fighting,” Meg explained. She still didn’t want to tell Sam about Jess, and the longer she waited to do that, the worse it’d be, so she might as well take it to her grave. “Castiel and I… well, we were just… worlds apart when it came to some things.”

Sam nodded comprehensively.

“Well, at least you know the reason you broke up with him,” he pointed out. “It’s more than I can say for myself.”

“Right,” Meg said. “But can you really break up with someone you weren’t technically dating? I’m asking for me,” she added, raising her hands to avoid Sam’s laser-like glare.

“Well, I don’t know,” he shrugged. “It sure felt like one.”

“Yeah,” Meg agreed. They stay quiet for several seconds, looking down at their books. Meg passed the highlighter over some words without really paying attention to what they said. “Let’s make a deal,” she proposed in the end. “Let’s promise not to date anyone else until we graduate.”

“That’s kind of a bleak agreement,” Sam pointed out.

“Maybe, but all this talk about couples and would-have-been’s got me down,” she said. “I don’t think I can absorb any of this anymore.”

Sam chuckled, although he knew exactly what she meant. “Wanna go to Benny’s?”

“Oh, God, yes.”


	14. Reality Check

The last day of the semester, Castiel woke up with a galloping headache and a ray of sunlight shinning in his face. The first thing he did after opening his eyes was put on his glasses and make sure he still had both eyebrows intact and that there wasn’t something dirty or disgusting under his bed. Ever since after the spring break, the guys at the frat house had decided he looked tired and depressed and that the best way to cheer him up was to gently bully him through increasingly uncomfortable pranks.

But his room was in order and his physical integrity intact, so Castiel sighed with relief. Then he looked at the clock and a sudden rush of panic went through to his head. It was two o’clock in the afternoon.

“I’m going to murder you all!” he yelled at the top of his lungs while he fished his clothes and jumped down the steps. “I’m going to…!”

“Woah, woah, Cas, take it easy,” Abner said appearing at the kitchen’s doorway. “What’s up with you, man?”

“How dare you turn off my alarm clock?!” Castiel shouted, as he picked up his backpack. “I’m going to be late for my exam of Torts, and you… you…. I don’t know what I’m going to do to you, but I’m going to figure it out as soon as I come back!”

He slammed the door behind him. It was a beautiful, sunny Friday, the birds were chirping…

Wait, Friday?

Castiel went back inside. “The exam was yesterday, right?”

“Take a seat and have some breakfast,” Abner invited him, rising his cup of coffee in his direction. “Rejoice. You are a free man, Castiel Novak.”

Castiel didn’t rejoice. Being done with finals meant having a lot of free time in his hands, and that meant, inevitably, to have his mind going to places he didn’t want it to go. But it was hard to remain panicky and nervous in Abner’s presence. He was probably the most zen, calmed person Castiel had ever known. He cooked and made sure everyone ate, which was the reason he had been dubbed the frat’s Grandma. Some of the guys had bets going on about what would take to make Abner go berserk, and if he would be the same afterwards.

Dick stumbled inside the kitchen half an hour later, yawning and stretching, and he took Castiel’s last toast. Immediately, Abner got up to make more.

“Long night?”

“Dude, I’m never cramming again,” Dick muttered. “I swear to God, next year I’m going to be a good boy and study in time, so I don’t want to kill myself during finals.”

In Castiel’s opinion, that was unlikely to happen. He had the theory that people, in general, never really changed. They just became a little more of what they actually were with time.

Like his brother Gabriel, for example. Gabriel had always been the wild, partying kind of guy. His pranks were still legendary around Landbrooke. His reputation had been part of how Castiel got accepted on the fraternity so easily. He couldn’t go on a day without someone saying something along the lines of: “Hey, aren’t you the brother of the guy who climbed the rooftop of that other fraternity and put red dye in the water tank so people would think they were bathing in blood?”

Okay, maybe Gabriel’s pranks had been a little morbid. But those days, infamous pranker Gabriel Novak wore a suite and a tie, he went to the office from nine to five and spent his days revising contracts and preventing disgustingly rich companies from getting sued. But Castiel knew for certain Gabriel kept a drawer full of lollipops in his desk and every once in a while, he called his younger brother to try to, in his own words, lure him away from the path of academic perfection Castiel had set out on.

“Come on, little brother,” he would say in such times. “I can pick you up in half an hour and we can go to a stripper club. It’ll be a memorable night and it’ll make for a good story when we’re all both fat and old and can’t get it up.”

Gabriel hadn’t really changed. He’d just pushed back that part of his personality that made him unable to hold a job and act like a decent human being in public.

Castiel had tried to change his ways as well. For at least his firsts few months in Landbrooke, he had tried following in Gabriel’s footsteps by getting drunk on weekly basis, arriving late for classes and organizing parties at the fraternity. But he had discovered soon enough that he wasn’t cut out for that kind of life. He’d much rather spend the nights in company of his books and his CD’s of classical music which, despite everything Meg might think, he actually did enjoy a lot. The guys had discovered that Castiel had a knack for organization and had from then on put him in charge of much smaller tasks, such as accounts and exam reminders.

But the Halloween party that he’d thrown with Jess’ help had been, in Brady’s words, legendary. He was expected to do the same now that the end of the semester was closing in on them and everybody would go home or go to work somewhere for the summer.

“Come on, bro,” Dick insisted, after he was awake enough to maintain a coherent conversation. “Let’s make it epic! The last hooray of the year!”

“I’m not exactly in the mood for epic parties and hoorays,” Castiel said, looking inside his coffee cup. He also wasn’t in the mood to wallow in his grief every time he saw Meg walking down the halls with Sam or crossed paths with her on the way to classes or caught a glimpse of her hair when he entered a library, but there he was.

He had always been hyperaware of Meg’s presence, but that seemed to multiply by ten after the spring break. They didn’t see each other as often (the last mock trial had ended with a half-hearted applause and a congratulations from Naomi to everyone who participated), but he still was almost unconsciously drawn to wherever she was.

Like he had read his thoughts, Abner said:

“What he really doesn’t want is to see that Masters girl.”

“And who said we were inviting her?” Dick asked.

“Richard Roman, pay attention,” Abner said. He was in the habit of calling people by their full name when he thought they were being morons. “She’s the roommate of Brady’s girlfriend.”

“Right,” Dick remembered. “I have no idea how he managed to pass all his exams and still have time to screw Ruby.”

Castiel had a faint idea of how that came to happen, but he wasn’t about to share it. He was still not sure how he’d agreed, but he blamed the combination of anxiety and too many caffeine pills.

“In any case, that’s just the thing, Cas,” Dick said. “You’ve had bad luck with the bitches this year. You just have to find yourself a new one that isn’t _too_ crazy and move on.”

Dick had the highly misogynistic opinion that all women were, to some extent, mentally unbalanced. Castiel had tried to explain to him that just because he had no idea how the female psyche worked; it didn’t mean every woman suffered from insanity, but it had been useless. Especially when all the other guys in the house had sided with Dick.

Nevertheless, part of what he said was right. People didn’t change, which meant that Castiel was always going to be stuck in his stubborn ways of understanding the world and the people who inhabited it, and that Meg was always going to be this exasperating, passionate and bewildering woman that both fascinated him and made his stomach grow metaphorical ulcers. A life with Meg meant a life of arguing over even the most insignificant things and Castiel having all his mistakes thrown in his face constantly.

Even when they were mistakes he regretted. Even when he wanted to apologize, but had no idea how to begin.

And there it was, the place he didn’t want to go to. Castiel shook his head.

“Will you clean afterwards?” he asked, defeated. Dick swore up and down he would. Castiel didn’t believe him.

 

* * *

 

Landbrooke, with all its prestige, was a still a rather small Law School, but it was amazing how fast news flew around campus. When Saturday night rolled around, people Castiel could have sworn he’d never seen before in his life showed up and greeted him like they were old friends.

Castiel had suffered through enough of these reunions to know more or less at what time he’d be able to disappear without anyone noticing: between two or three in the morning, all the people who didn’t plan to spend the night passed out drunk in the couch or the floor had already left with their assigned drivers. The rest of the guests would be getting too inebriated to care if Castiel locked himself up in his room and didn’t reappear until the next day with a garbage bag to pick up all the empty bottles.

But it was still too early for that, so he kept smiling and shaking hands like he wasn’t exhausted from the hellish week he’d just passed.

“Cas!” Abner called him. “Come and help me!”

Dick had fallen on his ass and he was currently sitting on the steps, giggling like a manic while several people threw worried glances at him. Abner was trying to pick him up in vain, because Dick seemed to find the whole situation too hilarious to cooperate. Castiel rushed to his side.

“Dick,” he said, pulling his arm up. “You feeling okay?”

“Yeah, man, yeah,” Dick chuckled. “I’ve never been better. There’s so much love in this room. Can you feel the love? I love everyone.”

“Yes, everything is lovely,” Abner sighed, trying to pull his friend up. “Come on.”

“You’re such good _friendz_ , _guyz_ ,” Dick slurred in Castiel’s ear, with an around his neck. “I don’t know what we would do without you. Everyone! A toast for Cas and Abner…!”

Dick raised his beer cup, but people had stopped paying attention to him now that someone was on his case. Abner carefully removed it from his hand and put it back down, where someone would probably kick it and spill its contents all over the rug. Well, they’d deal with that the following day.

“Alright, Dick,” Castiel said, holding him. “I think that’s quite enough of the epic party for you.”

“What’re you talking about?” Dick laughed in his face, with that awful drunken laughter Castiel was hearing more and more around him. “The night has just began, I’m… woah…”

Castiel missed the last part of his speech as he dragged him across the room towards the staircase. The music was deafening and Dick wasn’t making any sense anyway. Some of the guests were still putting up a fight against their own nervous system in the living room; trying to coordinate some dance steps that made Castiel wish he’d hidden away everything breakable when he’d had the chance. There was some girls snoring on the couch, and at first, Castiel’s exhausted mind didn’t find anything odd about that. Then it hit him that it was weird they were so few people down there.

“Hey, Dick?” he shook his friend a little when they reached the top of the staircase. That was the best place to hold a conversation without the music interrupting them. “Where is everybody?”

Dick opened his eyes, and looked around confused. “Did I miss it?” he asked.

“Missed what?”

“Brady said he was going to show us something _glorious_ ,” Dick explained, with a grin in his face. “But he told us not to tell you because you’re so uptight you wouldn’t get it.”

That was preoccupying. Anything the guys didn’t tell him they were going to do usually meant a mess he would have to clean later. But he pushed that thought to the back of his mind because Abner was losing his balance under Dick’s weight, who kept trying to pinch their cheeks.

They had just reached the door of Dick’s room when a shrill, desperate shout echoed down the hall followed by a chorus of laughter, as dissonant and nonsensical as Dick’s chuckles had been. A shadow passed running in front of Castiel, and he couldn’t be sure because it was so fast, but he had the impression he saw a pair of dark nipples before the bathroom’s door slammed on his face.

“Come on!” Brady approached the door, wearing nothing by his boxers and followed by another six or seven other guys. “Don’t be such a bitch, Ruby! It was just a joke!”

“What’s going on here?” Castiel asked.

Brady blinked and a twisted smile appeared on his face. He turned around to the group, who started booing and yelling things like _“Who brought the choir boy aboard?”_

“We’re just having some fun,” Brady said. “Don’t worry about it, Cassie.”

Castiel worried. He had grown up with Landbrooke’s legendary prankster, so he knew the line between “having some fun” and “getting sued for personal injuries” was a very thin one that required subtlety to not be crossed. And he didn’t think Brady, with his bloodshot eyes and the little swaying of his posture, was in any condition to be subtle.

“Was that Ruby?” Castiel asked, pointing at the closed door.

“I said don’t worry…”

“Cas,” Abner interrupted them. “She’s crying.”

Castiel tilted his head, and indeed, a loud sobbing reached his ears.

“Brady, what did you do?” he asked.

“It was just a stupid joke,” Brady said, rolling his eyes like thought everyone was overreacting. “I’ll deal with it. Ruby,” he called, knocking on the door. “Come out now. It was a joke, don’t take it so hard.”

The answer was some incomprehensible mumble followed by more sobbing. Castiel thought he distinguished the words: “Leave me alone!” and his blood starting boiling inside his veins. He might have been a lot of things, but he would never purposely upset a woman for fun.

“Just a stupid joke?” Abner repeated. His face was starting to get red underneath his beard.

“She’s being a little bitch,” Brady said. “She’ll come around. You go do whatever you were doing.”

Castiel looked at him, looked at the other boys standing around, still giggling and muttering between them. In that moment of absolute clarity, he realized he couldn’t just ignore this.

“Where are Ruby’s clothes?” he asked.

“Ugh, I’ll get them to her,” Brady replied.

“Yeah, after we see her tits again,” somebody said in the back, and all the boys began laughing.

“No,” Abner said. His voice was trembling and his fists were clenched. Apparently, they have finally discovered what it took to anger him. “Go. I don’t care where, just go away all of you.”

For a moment, he thought they weren’t going to listen to him. They remained rooted to their spots, like they expected the fraternity’s Grandma to say he was kidding and let them go on harassing Ruby.

“You heard him, brother,” Castiel intervened. “Move it.”

Some of the guys disappeared, like a flock of doves taking flight, but Brady and two or three more stayed right where they were.

“No,” Brady replied, crossing his arms. “This is none of your business, so why should we do anything you say, big guy?”

Abner took a step towards Brady, like he was going to show him the reasons via a well-placed punch, but Castiel extended a hand to stop him. There was no point in making the situation any more uncomfortable than it already was.

“You are going to listen to what I say, then,” Castiel affirmed. “If you don’t leave Ruby alone right now, I’m going to tell my mother what you did to pass her exam.”

Brady’s arrogant expression hesitated, but Castiel saw the fear that crossed his eyes for a moment.

“You wouldn’t,” he said. Castiel whipped out his cellphone and stared defiantly at Brady. “You’re bluffing. You’d go down with me,” Brady insisted. “You’ll get expelled too.”

“Please. My mother is Naomi Moore,” Castiel said, squaring his shoulders and grinning at Brady. “You really think she’s going to let one of her sons get expelled? They’re going to pin it all on you, and I don’t think you’ll want to explain to your father how you ended up in front of a disciplinary board.”

Brady opened his mouth, and then closed it again, gasping like a fish out of the water. He pursed his lips, like he was about to groan something at Castiel, but in the end, he simply turned around and left hastily, along with the remaining spectators. Abner followed him practically breathing down his neck.

“Ruby?” Castiel called, knocking on the door. “It’s okay, they’re gone. Are you alright?”

There was no answer. Castiel wasn’t even sure if Ruby was still crying, and that silence gave him a bad feeling.

“Ruby?” he insisted, as Abner returned with a bundle in his hands. “Hey, we got your things. Can we can give them to you?”

Nothing. A moment later, though, the door cracked open, barely enough for Castiel to slide the clothes in. Abner stood beside him, throwing menacing looks at whoever dared to pass and stare. He still had his fists in a ball, but he no longer looked like he was going to beat the crap out of someone. Abner’s rage was apparently as intense as it was brief.

“Do you want a glass of water?” Castiel asked, after a few minutes. Ruby still remained silent.

“She’s in the bathroom,” Abner pointed out. “I bet she has all the water she could possibly need. Ask her if she wants us to take her to her home. I’ve got my car.”

“Did you hear that, Ruby?” Castiel insisted, softly.

“Yes,” came a trembling voice. “I… thank you.”

“Okay,” Castiel said. “Are you going to come out now?”

Ruby stayed silent for so long Castiel was about to repeat the question. Then she walked out, her eyes puffy and red, and before anyone could ask anything else, she threw herself in Abner’s arms, sobbing quietly on his shoulder.

 

* * *

There were very few cars circulating in the campus at that hour, but it still took them some time to get to Ruby’s dorm wing: she’d asked them if they could take a ride so she had time to pull herself together. Both Castiel and Abner agreed, so they drove around for several minutes until she stopped crying.

“Thank you,” she said, finally. Castiel looked at her through the rearview mirror. She was in the backseat with her head pressed against the window, and her slumped shoulders indicated she felt defeated and tired.

“Of course,” Castiel said.

“You’re very welcome,” Abner added.

None of them asked what exactly had happened, but Ruby explained anyway.

“Brady thought it’d be fun to insinuate I had agreed to a gang bang and had all the guys burst in while we were doing it,” she said. “They all saw me naked. They’re never going to let me live it down. I guess that’s what I get from being a whore.”

“You’re not a whore, Ruby,” Castiel said, immediately. “You just trusted the wrong person. It happens.”

“He’s right,” Abner agreed. “To me it sounds more like your boyfriend was being an ass.”

“Ex-boyfriend,” Ruby corrected him. She reached inside her purse and took out a small makeup mirror and some liquid eyeliner. “And I would really appreciate it if you don’t comment this to anyone.”

“Absolutely.”

“You got it.”

Ruby smiled (a small, coy smile that wasn’t at all flirty, the way Castiel had seen her smile at Sam or at Brady).

“Thank you,” she repeated, as they parked in front of her wing. “I swear I’m keeping my nose clean from now on. No more guys.”

Castiel couldn’t say she blamed her. Abner didn’t start the car until she was already inside. He seemed pensive.

“What was that whole business of you telling on Brady to your mom?” he asked.

Castiel grimaced, but decided that he owed Abner the truth.

“Brady convinced me to let him inside my mother’s office for half an hour,” he confessed. “I don’t know exactly what he did, but I am certain it was against the college’s rules.”

Abner whistled. “Cheating bastard.”

It was so odd to hear Abner using that kind of vocabulary, but Castiel figured Brady didn’t deserve any less.

“And I lied,” Castiel continued. “Mother would be furious if she ever finds out. She would make sure I am punished too.”

“So you were willing to drag yourself through the mud to help the girl,” Abner commented. “That was really noble of you, Cas.”

Castiel didn’t know if it was noble or not. It’d just looked like the right thing to do. He knew Brady and the other guys in the frat house didn’t always behaved ethically, but Castiel had never thought they would hurt anybody on purpose. Obviously, as it appeared to be the case more and more often, he had been epically wrong. 


	15. Friends Don't Let Friends Drunk-Dial Their Exes

“To surviving the exam season!”

“Cheers!”

Sam and Meg toasted with their bottle beers and laughed hysterically.

“Alright, college kids,” Dean said, when he saw both of them gulping down their drinks. “Don’t you think you need to slow down a bit?”

“Shut up,” Meg said, pointing a finger at him. “Surprise visitors who didn’t just pass all their exams don’t get an opinion.”

“Yeah, and we all know you didn’t come to see me,” Sam added. “You’re here to hook up with Benny again.”

Dean shrugged, apologetically, and Sam and Meg couldn’t even be mad at him.

The day before they’d been nearly delirious from the exhaustion, so they’d decided to call it a night and celebrate the end of the year the following day. They were done with classes and notes and endless study sessions in the library. They’d get their results back the following week, and in the meantime, they were already looking for somewhere to stay. They had both been accepted to start a summer internship in a legal aids office there in Landbrooke, but all of that was still too far away. That night was theirs to unwind a little, and no one could take their euphoria away. There was probably a party somewhere they could be going to, but of course they’d chosen to go to Benny’s instead.

“Too bad your friend couldn’t come,” Dean commented. “She seemed like a lot of fun.”

“Ruby? Yeah, I don’t know,” Meg said. “She came back late last night and told me she broke up with Brady.”

“Thank God,” Sam sighed.

“She seemed a little affected,” Meg shrugged. “So she said she was going on a shopping spree to mend her heart today.”

“Who the hell goes shopping to work out their issues?” Dean asked, rolling his eyes.

“Who the hell counts on start working for their dad private consultation when they finish school?” Sam added.

“Who the hell has cottages by the lake?” Meg said. “Rich bastards.”

“And then there’s people like us, who survive on scholarship and underpaid internships,” Sam commented. He raised his finger like he was making a very important point, and Meg suspected the alcohol was starting to go to his brain. “We, we… we don’t need any of that. We’ll do it our own way and show ‘em.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Meg said, raising her bottle again.

Dean laughed and imitated them, only to put his bottle down as soon as he noticed Benny was no longer busy. “Excuse me,” he said.

“Go get some!” Meg encouraged him. “At least one of us will.”

“Yeah,” Sam chuckled sadly. Then he practically choked on his beer and ducked under the table in one fluid movement.

“What are you doing?” Meg asked, finally convinced Sam couldn’t handle his liquor.

“I don’t want her to see me!”

“Who? Ruby?” Meg asked, looking around for a familiar face among the patrons. And she found it, alright.

Castiel and Jess had just walked in arm in arm, and they were looking around like they were trying to locate someone. Meg had a strong déjà vu from Christmas and had to fight the impulse to hide under the table with Sam. But many things had happened since then. She could handle four finals in a row with as little as two hours to sleep in between study sessions, and she could definitely handle this. Tonight, she was invincible.

Of course, it would have been ever better if she had been invisible and wouldn’t have to put that theory to test. Jess and Castiel spotted her and went directly to their table, hopefully just to greet them. But she wasn’t that lucky.

“Hey, Meg!” Jess said, with that same charming smile she always seemed to have.

“Jess!” Meg replied, with as much courtesy as she could muster. “Hadn’t seen you around since Christmas. Where you’ve been?”

“Well, I…” Jess started.

The table gave a little jump, interrupting her. The bottles of beer clattered and Sam emerged from underneath it, rubbing his head. Meg deduced he had tried to make a quick getaway, but his enormously large limbs and colossal height hadn’t helped.

“Hi!” he said, with a falsely cheery tone.

“What were you doing under the table?” Castiel asked.

“I, uh… I was…”

“Looking for his keys,” Meg said, picking up the keychain that had fallen on Sam’s chair when he ducked. “They’re right here.”

Sam winced at her. Meg wasn’t sure if that meant he was thankful she was giving an excuse for his ridiculous behavior or if it was because said excuse had made him look like a bit of an idiot.

“Thanks,” he muttered, sitting back up like a normal human being. “Hello, Cas. Jess.”

The awkward silence that followed marked a twelve in a scale of one to ten. Were they expecting them to ask them to sit down? Because that wasn’t going to happen. They had been down that road and knew it only ended in embarrassment and heartbreak. They had grown and learned and weren’t about to…

“Why don’t you sit?” Sam invited them. “The service might be a little slow because my brother is flirting with Benny, but…”

“Are you sure?” Jess asked, and for once, she was the one who looked all confused and self-conscious. “We wouldn’t want to bother.”

“Of course not!” Sam said. “This isn’t like… a private reunion or anything. I mean, we’re just having some beers, celebrating the end of the year. We totally have room for more people, don’t we, Meg?”

Meg hoped Sam knew the next day his body was going to be found on a ditch with his throat slashed.

“Absolutely,” she said, with a smile so forced it made her face hurt. “I don’t have a problem with it.”

“Good, I-I’m glad,” Castiel stuttered. “Yeah, that’s… that’s good.”

They still stayed there, not sure how to proceed, but luckily for them Benny spotted them. He dragged to extra chairs to their table, and preemptively left five more bottles for them so he could keep flirting with Dean without interruption. Jess fidgeted with her beer while Castiel took a long swig.

“So… the Torts exam was a bitch, right?” he said.

Meg and Sam exchanged a look. They were both wondering the same long: exactly how long were they going to put up with this?

 

* * *

 

In total, they had to put up with it around forty-five torturous minutes.

Meg switched to root beer because she needed to keep her head over her shoulders, and forced herself to look engaged in the bouts of small talk they had going on. She had to use all her willpower not to whip out her cellphone and pretend to be texting someone.

“So… you staying in Landbrooke for long, Jess?” Sam asked. He looked way too interested for a man who less than an hour ago was declaring he didn’t need anybody.

“Uh, no, not really,” Jess said. She had finally stopped smiling, like even she couldn’t pretend everything was perfectly fine. “Just, you know… visiting Cas and Aunt Naomi, and then I’m going to do some practice in my dad’s office.”

Sam nodded like all of that was fascinating.

“But I’m gonna be here for the 4th of July,” Jess added. “Cas’ family always has this big barbecue and…”

“I’m going to be home for that,” Sam said, a little too fast. “Dad wouldn’t forgive me if I miss it.”

“I see.”

So they had their weird _“What’s going on between us?”_ moment, and Meg and Cas had theirs. Although it was more like a game of “ _Let’s see how long we can avoid each other’s eye and pretend this isn’t happening.”_ Meg wanted to ask him exactly what the hell did he think he was playing at, but that whole thing wasn’t about her. It was about helping Sam navigate this with as much dignity as he could muster, so whenever the conversation got stagnant, she would come up with another topic.

“What’s going to be your specialization?”

“Pediatrics,” Jess answered automatically. Then she seemed to realize she had talked too fast because she looked away and drank her beer without adding anything else.

“She loves children,” Castiel came to her rescue. “Yeah, she… adores them, really. Always talked about being a mom growing up.”

“Interesting,” Meg said, when she actually meant she wasn’t interested at all. She just wanted this whole charade to end.

It ended as soon as Dean convinced Benny to close early and go home with him. By the way the place emptied since Benny kept shooing away the clients, Meg deduced that was his plan from the very beginning but he wasn’t going to let Dean had it so easy.

“See you around, kids,” Benny said as he locked the door. He walked away with Dean’s arm around his waist, and the four of them were left to clumsily say their goodbye and leave in opposite directions.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Sam commented as they walked down the street.

“No, I guess it wasn’t,” Meg said.

It had been awful, in her opinion, but a different kind from the awfulness that was Christmas. She thought about explaining to Sam how she was proud of herself for not giving Castiel a piece of her mind. Anger would have meant she still felt something for him, so she was very satisfied with the way she perfectly played cold indifference. She simply didn’t care for Castiel anymore.

Which was totally a lie, if the galloping rhythm her heart was beating to was anything to go by.

But again, that night hadn’t been about her.

“I mean, I thought it’d be terribly hard to see her again,” Sam continued. “But I’m fine.”

“Really?” Meg asked, rising an eyebrow.

“Totally,” Sam stated. “I don’t even have feelings for her anymore. I’ve moved on.”

“Glad to hear that,” Meg shrugged. She was pretty sure Sam was lying too, but she was going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Do you think she’s moved on, too?” Sam added, nervously. _Of course_.

“What are you doing?” she asked, when she saw him take out his cellphone.

“I’m going to check her Facebook page,” Sam said, like it was the most logical next step. “Maybe she’ll write something about tonight and…”

“Give me that!” Meg shouted, snatching it from his hand. “You’re not going to fall into the Facebook-stalker cycle again. You’re better than that, Sam Winchester. You’re done with her.”

“You’re right. I’ve moved on,” Sam repeated, straightening his shoulders.

“You built a bridge and got over it,” Meg said, using her best inspirational voice.

“Completely. Completely over it,” Sam agreed. They stopped in the corner, waiting for the lights to change. Sam took a deep breath and pointed at his phone: “Maybe… you should hold on to that for a couple of days.”

 

* * *

 

The following morning, an electric guitar melody woke Meg up. She raised her aching head, confused, and looked at Ruby, who was slumbering peacefully with a mask over her eyes. Meg was tempted to wake her up and ask her if she’d got a new phone when the guitar sounded again. Meg realized where she’d heard it before. She picked up her jacket and searched inside her pockets.

“Sam Winchester’s phone. Meg speaking because friends don’t let friends drunk-dial their exes.”

Meg expected to get a chuckle from Dean or an exasperated comment from Mrs. Winchester, because, really, apart from her, those were the only people who ever called this lousy nerd. Instead, what she got was a very distinctive female voice going: “ _Oh, my God!_ ” in what must have been the most embarrassed tone of voice in the history of the human race before the call ended.

“Who was that?” Ruby groaned, emerging from her cocoon of covers and sheets.

“I’m… I’m pretty sure it was… Jess,” Meg replied, frowning at the phone. She checked the incoming calls, and yes, she was right. Also, it came as no surprise Sam had never deleted Jess’ number, and that he had the solo of _Sweet Child O’Mine_ as her ringtone. Meg recognized it because it was sounding again. “Hello?”

“I-I’m sorry, Meg,” Jess stammered on the other end, and Meg had no problem imagining her all flustered and looking down at her shoes. “Can I, uh… do you think Sam will want to talk to me?”

“I…” Meg hesitated.

She was enormously tempted to tell Jess to save it and stop pestering Sam, that she had been a jerk to the guy Meg loved like a brother and for that she deserved her scorn and despise. But then again, she would be doing the exact same thing she broke up with Castiel for doing. Also, Sam was a literally a big boy, if he didn’t want to talk to Jess, he could tell her himself.

“You know what? Why don’t you call back in ten minutes?” she suggested, in the end. “That way I can get this back to him.”

“Sure, yeah,” Jess muttered. “That… yeah.”

Well, letting her sweat a little bit wasn’t the elaborate vengeance Meg hoped for, but it was something.

“What is it?” Ruby asked as Meg got dressed to head for Sam’s dorm. “Are they going to get back together?”

“I don’t know,” Meg groaned.

Ruby stood up, put on a pair of shots over her panties, not even caring about getting rid of the top of her pajama.

“But she’s calling him!” she insisted as she followed Meg down the hall. “That means she wants to make up.”

“I don’t know, Ruby,” Meg huffed, knocking on Sam’s door. He opened up blinking at the light and before he opened his mouth, Meg shoved the phone in his hand. “Jess wants to talk to you.”

“What?” Sam screamed and went pale. “Are you serious? W-What do I tell her?”

“You can tell her you don’t want to talk to her,” Meg suggested.

“Don’t be stupid, he obviously _wants_ to talk to her,” Ruby intervened. By the way Sam was hyperventilating, Meg had some serious doubts he was getting to talk to anyone for the time being.

“Oh, God,” he kept repeating, as he sat on his bed and stared at his phone like it was a poisonous animal about to attack him. “Oh, God…”

“Okay, breathe,” Ruby indicated, sitting in front of him. “Just breathe. Play it cool.”

“Cool,” Sam repeated. “I can do that.”

“He can _so_ not do that,” Meg pointed out. Sam threw a bitch face at her that lasted exactly two seconds: the guitar solo of _Sweet Child O’Mine_ invaded the room. Ruby mouthed _“Breathe”_ as Sam took the call.

“Hi, Jess,” he said, and he actually sounded composed and calmed. “Yeah, Meg told me. Really? Oh, right now? Yes, of course. I mean, I-I’m… I’m cool with that.”

Meg hit her forehead with an open palm while Ruby shook her head.

“You’re not supposed to say you’re cool when you’re playing it cool!” she explained when Sam hung up. “That negates the coolness!”

But Sam had more pressing matters in his mind.

“She wants to see me,” he replied, his sight lost somewhere past beyond her friends. “She said she wanted to… to apologize.”

Meg and Ruby exchanged a look, unsure of what to say.

“Well, that’s…” Meg started. She was going for “unexpected” or “sudden”, but Ruby jumped from her seat.

“Awesome!” she completed.

“It is,” Sam said, slowly coming back to his senses. “Yeah, that’s…” he stood up and started pacing around the room, unsure of what to do next. “I-I… I have to meet her at Benny’s in fifteen minutes,” he said, heading for the door. “I…”

“Woah, slow down, Romeo,” Meg grabbed his arm to stop him. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Sam looked down and realized he was only wearing a pair of old sweat pants.

“Right,” he breathed. “Clothes. I need those.”

“We’ll leave you to it,” Meg said, but she wasn’t even sure Sam heard them, too busy looking around for something wearable as they both left the room.

“This is so amazing!” Ruby said when they got back to their space. She was clapping like she always did when she was excited. “Don’t you think so, Meg?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Meg shrugged. She was reserving her opinion until she saw what kind of effect this had on Sam. “I gotta say, I’m… pleasantly surprised, Ruby. I figured you’d be circling Sam like a vulture now you’re both single again.”

“Please, Meg,” Ruby scoffed. “He’s not interested. I can take a hint.”

Meg raised an eyebrow, skeptical.

“Okay,” Ruby admitted, sitting on her bed. “Maybe it took more than just one hint for me to get it. But, you know, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking after the bullshit that went on with Brady. I’ve decided life’s too short for jerks and uninterested guys.”

“Really?” Meg chuckled as she opened her computer to write her dad an e-mail. “What did Brady do to you anyway?”

Ruby didn’t answer. When Meg looked back at her, she noticed she had a serious expression she’d rarely seen on her roommate.

“You mean Cas hasn’t told you?” she asked.

“I haven’t really talked to Castiel in a while,” Meg said. What did he have to do with anything anyway?

“Oh, I figured… I mean, I asked him to keep quiet, but I didn’t really expect him to go through with that,” Ruby explained, with a little shrug. “I thought he would come running to tell you how he helped me. Make himself look like a disinterested knight in shining armor so you’d forgive him. Something like that.”

“No,” Meg shook his head. “He wouldn’t do that.”

Of all the things Castiel was, however different they were at the end of the day, she could say that about him with the utmost certainty: he kept his mouth shut when you asked him to. And even if he screwed up when trying to help, he didn’t have any secret agendas.

“Right,” Ruby said. “Well, it’s not a pretty story.”


	16. Flaws

Missouri Moseley was a large, black woman with eyes like lasers and an attitude that clearly indicated she took no bullshit.

“Let me tell you, girl,” she said to Meg while she guided her inside one of the apartments she had for rent. “A lot of kids like you come to stay here for the summer, so I’ve seen everything. I have a zero tolerance for drugs, and if you’re gonna throw a party, make sure I don’t find out about it.”

“Of course, Mrs. Moseley,” Meg nodded.

The furniture in the rooms was old, the kitchen was tiny and the bathroom even tinier. However, the price was reasonable. Meg and Sam would be able to put it together with their savings and the meager income they’d obtain from their internship and still have some spare change left  for eating. The place didn’t have any suspicious stains on the walls and it was within walking distance to the legal aids office. Meg knew they’d hit the jackpot as soon as she saw the ad on Criag list and called Missouri to check it out that afternoon.

However, she’d promised Sam she wouldn’t make any decisions without consulting him, which was going to be harder to maintain since he wasn’t picking up his phone.

“Where the hell are you?” Meg asked in the third voice mail she left him. “You said you were going to be here twenty minutes ago. If you don’t show up, I’m going to choose the bigger room…”

“We said we’d throw a coin!”

Meg turned around to find Sam standing in the hallway outside, looking betrayed and offended at the fact she was going to disrespect their pact.

“Well, it’d be your fault for being late,” she said, punching him in the bicep. “Look at this place! If we’d lost it because you weren’t here in time…”

“You’d have done do something horrible to my hair, I know, I know,” Sam sighed. But his exasperation didn’t last very long. He leaned on the doorway with a big goofy smile in his face. Damn, the guy was practically asking for Meg to tease him.

“So last night things went good with Jess, I presume,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

“She apologized for leaving the way she did,” Sam said. “We talked a lot, and then we went back to my dorm…”

“… to talk some more?”

“… to do some… private stuff,” Sam added, blushing and staring at his shoes. “She left right before you called me this morning.”

Meg bit her lips. Okay, now he was _begging_ for it.

“Change my mind,” she announced. “I don’t want the bigger room. I want the one with thicker walls.”

“It wasn’t like that!” Sam protested. “We really care about each other, and we have this profound connection…”

“Oh, my God!” Meg threw her arms in the air. “Why can’t you just brag about getting laid like a normal person?”

“What, like you did when you were sleeping with Castiel?”

Meg wished she could’ve come up with a reply, but the hit was so low all she managed was to lift a finger and blurt out: “I never bragged.” Then she had to look away so Sam wouldn’t see her red eyes. He understood he had crossed a line anyway.

“Meg, I’m sorry,” Sam said, taking a step towards her. “I shouldn’t have brought that up…”

“It’s fine,” Meg interrupted him. “I’m just tired and hypersensitive. It’s stupid, really. It’s just…”

There were a thousand ways she could’ve finished that sentence: “ _It’s just I didn’t even try to talk things out in a rational manner._ ” “ _It’s just I was terrified because we are so damn different and yet exactly the same._ ” “ _It’s just only now I’m realizing how much I…_ ”

She stopped her train of thoughts right there and went for the most harmless explanation:

“… I was wrong about him.”

Sam remained quiet for several seconds, so Meg had time to collect herself and change the topic.

“So what do you think? We close the deal?”

“It’s not too late, you know?” Sam said. “You could still call him and…”

“And what? Make sweet, sweet love with him until he forgives me?” Meg shook her head and tried to laugh it off, in vain. “Nah. That’s something saps like you and your girl do.”

“It wasn’t like that!” Sam repeated as they went downstairs to tell Mrs. Moseley they wanted it.

“Whatever you say, Sammy boy,” Meg replied. “I guess this means we’re annulling the no date ‘til we graduate agreement?”

“If you don’t mind,” Sam said, scratching the back of his neck. “You were right all along. We wasted a lot of time treading lightly. We’re not going to miss out another second now we both know where we’re standing.”

“So I guess that means she’s going to be dropping by a lot this summer,” Meg grimaced.

“She’s going to be doing her practice at a friend of her dad’s office here in town,” Sam explained. “But that doesn’t mean we’re going to be…”

“Fucking like rabbits all the time?” Meg rolled her eyes as they arrived to Missouri’s opened door. She threw them a murderous look when they approached her in the lobby.

“We won’t… be doing that,” Sam stuttered, and it was amazing how little he could make himself look under the severe stare of their future landlady. Meg thought Missouri was going to say something along the lines of Sam needing Jesus, but Missouri simply shrugged.

“Boy, as long as I don’t have to hear it, I don’t care.”

 

* * *

 

They returned to the campus to look for their stuff, because Missouri was kind enough to let them move in the following day. Despite everything, Meg was excited. It was the first time in her life she could say in complete honesty she had a place on her own, that she had chosen and that she would be paying for. It made her feel incredibly grown-up.

Which is why she wasn’t thrown off at first when she saw Hester waiting outside her dorm, with her arms crossed across her chest and a bitter expression on her face. Meg first thought she must have been lost, but when Hester stepped towards her, straightening her shoulder like a cobra spreading its hood, it was obvious she had been waiting for her.

“Meg Masters,” she began. “How _dare_ you?”

“Hello, Hester,” Meg greeted her, trying to figure out why was she there. Then it hit her. “Are you looking for Cas? Because, you know… he and I no longer do that. Looks like we’ve both been dumped.”

She added a chuckle to hide how much it hurt her to say that, but Hester’s expression went harder still.

“Don’t try to play nice with me,” she said, her voice growing slightly louder, as if she was trying to call the attention of anyone who might pass by. “I know what you did, and you are such a… a…”

She hesitated, like there was not an insult strong enough in her vocabulary that applied to her. Meg, on her part, was even more confused than before, and also a more than a little irritated at being ambushed in such manner. If Hester came looking for a fight, she had rolled in the wrong town. Mainly because Meg had no interest at all to argue with her.

“Look, first of all, I have no idea what are you talking about,” Meg began. “And second… would you like to come in?” she added, opening the door. “I get the feeling this is a conversation best held privately.”

Hester stayed where she was, clenching her fists.

“No,” she replied. “Aren’t you the one who loves public confrontations? We’re talking about this right here, right now.”

“No, we’re not,” Meg said, after taking a deep breath. “I mean, you can talk about it, but that doesn’t mean I have to listen to you. So… get in or get off.”

Hester’s face went red, which was not a flattering effect given the pink blouse she was wearing, but she caved in and followed Meg into her dorm.

“Now,” Meg said, closing the door. “What is that you believe I did?”

“You know very well,” Hester snapped, pointing an accusing finger at her. “I might have broken up with Cas, but Jess and I are still very good friends. You told Castiel to tell her to go back with Sam.”

Meg tried to wrap her head around that ridiculous idea, and when she couldn’t, she let out a small laugh.

“Is this some kind of prank?” she asked. “Did Sam and Ruby put you up to his?”

“So you’re saying you’re innocent then?” Hester insisted, crossing her arms again. “I don’t believe you.”

“But you believe I somehow have this supernatural power to get Cas to do my will?” Meg replied. She didn’t mean to be sarcastic, but the whole thing was just so absurd she couldn’t help herself. “Have you met the guy?”

“You got him to break up with me!” Hester exploded.

“Oh, is that what this is all about?” Meg understood, but she was not any less bewildered by this thing blowing up now. “But that was month ago. Did Cas tell you I said anything?”

“No, but he implied it!” Hester said, and Meg wanted to tell her that argument wouldn’t fly in court. She did that a lot when she fought with Cas, and the thought made her smile. Hester didn’t take it very well. “It’s true! And it’s also your fault he had a falling out with all his friends at the fraternity!”

“No, hold on,” Meg raised her open palms to appease her. “He probably did that because they were acting like jerks at that party…”

“According to your friend Ruby,” Hester interrupted her.

“Whom I believe wholeheartedly,” Meg said. Now she was pissed. It was one thing to fling all that stupid things at her, but her roommate had had a terrible experience. And yes, maybe they weren’t always the best of friends, but Meg wasn’t about to stand there and let Hester call Ruby a liar. “I have nothing to tell to you, Hester. Even if Cas and I were still on speaking terms, even if I’d convinced him to say anything to Jess…”

“You did!” Hester shrieked. “And now she’s back with that… that guy…”

“That guy who’s crazy about her?” Meg cut her off.

“So what?” Hester screamed. “He’s still fooling around with the likes of you and that Ruby girl. It’s just a matter of time ‘til Jess realizes she’s just another notch on his bedpost.”

Had she just really come out and said that? Meg tilted her head, not realizing she was copying Castiel’s confused gestures. She simply wasn’t sure she’d heard right.

“What exactly do you think goes on here? ‘Cause I assure you, it’s not nearly as interesting,” she said. Hester opened her mouth, but Meg didn’t let her continue: “Jess is a big girl who can make decisions all of her own without anyone telling her what to do. So is Cas, and so is Sam, and so is me. We’re all very mature, in fact. You’re the one that’s acting like a spoiled brat and blowing things way out of proportion.”

“Wouldn’t you know about that?” Hester sneered.

That was the last straw. Meg’s first impulse was to bitch slap her and hauled her out of the room, but she took a deep breath and reminded herself she could end with an assault charge if she did so much as standing too close to Hester. Also, that would have defeated the statement she’d just made about her maturity. And in any case, Hester wasn’t telling her anything Meg didn’t already knew.

“You’re right,” she said simply, taking out her cellphone. “You’re absolutely right. Now if you excuse me…”

“I’m not done talking!” Hester said, angered at the fact Meg was no longer paying attention to her.

“No, but I am,” Meg replied, putting her cellphone in her ear and opening the door for Hester. In the time it took for Sam to pick up, the girl understood Meg wasn’t budging and left stomping hard on the floor tiles. Meg didn’t pay attention to her. “Hey, nerd. Is Jess with you? I need a favor…”

 

* * *

 

The Novak family lived in a penthouse, because _of course_ they did. Meg fidgeted nervously with the strap of her backpack during the entire elevator ride, hoping the doorman didn’t have some sort of intercom to warn Castiel of her arrival. She stepped into a hallway adorned with elegant pictures and hesitated a second longer before ringing the bell. She prayed for Hael or for one of Castiel’s brothers who’d never seen her before to answer, but she wasn’t in luck.

“Masters?” Professor Moore asked, frowning. “How did you get my address?”

It was so weird to see her with her hair down and a pair of jeans instead of the impeccable gray suits she wore to classes that Meg was dumbstruck for a second. Then she realized a teacher had asked her a question and her student instincts kicked in.

“Jess gave it to me. Sorry to show up like this. I’m… actually not here to see you,” she said, almost stumbling through the words. She cleared her throat and added, a little too late: “Professor. I need to speak with Castiel.”

Professor Moore’s expression went from curiosity to clear horror. “Why?”

“Some… personal issues,” Meg replied.

How much would she know? Because if she only had the image of their shouting matches at the mock trials, she probably thought Meg was there to strangle her son with her bare hands.

“Hi, Meg!” a happy voice intervened from behind. Hael appeared behind Professor Moore, with a smile as radiant as before. “It’s so good to see you!”

“Hi…”

“You know each other?” Professor Moore asked, looking at both of them alternatively.

“Cas is in Father’s studio,” Hael said, pointing at a door to her left.

“Thank you,” Meg said, with an awkward smile, and she tried to move past them as fast as she could without giving the impression she was fleeing. Which she totally was.

“What’s going on?” Professor Naomi asked her daughter in a whisper. Meg didn’t catch Hael’s answer: she had already closed the library door behind her.

The studio was an orderly and elegant room. There was a dark wooden desk with a laptop in it, and several armchairs. Castiel was on sitting in one of them, with a book on his lap, with his concentration face on.

“Is dinner ready, Hael?” he asked. Then he raised his eyes, and stood up so fast the book fell on the carpet. “Meg…”

“Hi,” she said.

Castiel opened his mouth, closed it again and leaned to pick the book. He looked at her like he expected her to have vanished by the time he raised his head again. Meg noticed the book was the same one she had been reading during their stay at the lake house, and felt a pang of something unidentifiable in her chest.

“What are you…?” Castiel began, but Meg lifted a finger.

“I have something to tell you and I need you to be quiet while I do it,” she began.

Castiel blinked several times. “O… okay,” he accepted in the end.

Right, quick and painless. Like she’d rehearsed.

“I love you.”

Meg said that first because that was the hardest part. That had always been the hardest part to admit, even to herself. Once she’d said it, it was like a great weigh was lifted from her shoulders and she was able to breathe easier. Castiel stunned face made her smile.

“I love you,” she repeated. It was so simple; she didn’t know why she’d kept in for so long. “And it’s really irritating, to be honest, but I can’t help it. You have tunnel vision, you don’t realize how your actions affect other people and you’re an all-around arrogant prick.”

Castiel stood there, still not saying anything. He seemed to be wondering if he should feel insulted or not.

“But I’m not without fault,” Meg continued. She was toying with her fingers, not looking directly at him. Dammit, she hated apologizing. “I let my anger get the better of me. I didn’t even try to see your side of the story. And if hadn’t spent so much time being angry at you, I would’ve realized that you didn’t mean to hurt Sam. And that you were trying to make up for it when you brought Jess back. And when you helped Ruby.”

She looked up again and licked her lips. Her mouth was suddenly dry.

“You’re actively trying to be better, so I thought I should too. I’m sorry. For everything,” she concluded. “And I’ll understand if me loving you means very little to you now.”

Castiel blinked behind his glasses and Meg waited.

“Oh, you’re done?” he asked, after several seconds had passed. “Okay.”

He crossed the room in two energetic strides and grabbed Meg by the waist. Their mouths clashed as Castiel pushed her against the wall, his fingers running through her hair. Meg hanged on to his shoulders, closing her eyes and getting lost in the familiar sensation of his skin for a second before reality dawned on her.

“Cas,” she muttered, while Castiel peppered her neck with light kisses. “Your mom and your sister are probably eavesdropping on the other side of the door.”

Castiel froze. “Well, that’s one way to kill the mood.”

They stared at each other, and then burst out laughing. Castiel rested his forehead against Meg’s.

“New agreement,” he said. “You’re my girlfriend. We don’t date anyone but each other. I get to hold your hand in public and take you to places and give you stupid gifts on Valentine’s Day and sleep with you after we have sex.”

“Deal,” Meg accepted. “And we only fight on Thursdays.”

“And you tell me you love me as often as you can,” Castiel added. “Because it means the world to me.”

“I love you,” Meg repeated, pulling him closer for another kiss.

There was a knock on the door.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Hael said, popping her head in. “Mom’s wondering if _your girlfriend_ is staying for dinner.”

She was biting her lips, obviously holding back a bark of laughter. She didn’t even try to pretend she hadn’t been listening, and Meg figured this would become another of her embarrassing Castiel stories. Well, she wasn’t about to disappoint her.

“Thank you,” she said. “That’d be lovely.”

There was horror on Castiel’s face when Meg turned to him, but he pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath.

“We are _so_ fighting about this next Thursday.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thanks to DoctorMongoose who sent the original prompt that spawned this fic.


	17. Epilogue: Dinner At The Novak's

The dinner went… well.

There was a bit of awkwardness at first when Mr. Novak first arrived and Hael announced at the top of her lungs that Castiel’s girlfriend was staying over for dinner.

Mr. Novak, a short, bearded man wearing a black suit that had certainly known better days, stayed at the door for a moment, looking at his younger daughter with confusion overflowing his kind blue eyes.

“His girlfriend?” he repeated. “Since when does he have a girlfriend?”

“Since fifteen minutes ago,” Hael replied, clapping her hands. “Isn’t it exciting?”

“I… guess,” Mr. Novak said, still pretty clearly unsure of what was going on. “Uh… isn’t it a little bit soon for him to be introducing her to his family?”

“Who cares? Come and meet her!”

Hael grabbed his hand and dragged him to the living room where Meg and Castiel were standing. Meg had to rub her hands on her jeans before stretching it towards him, while putting on her biggest smile.

“Hello,” she said, hoping her tone didn’t give out just how nervous she was to be meeting the famous head of the Novak household. “I’m Meg. Nice to meet you, Mr. Novak.”

“Please, call me Carver,” he said, returning the smile. “I must say, you’re a stunning young woman. Cas truly has an impeccable taste.”

“Dad, please, she’s not a rug I’m planning to decorate the living room with,” Castiel groaned. His face was stoic as ever, but Meg noticed his neck had suddenly turned red and the color was creeping up towards his face.

“I know,” Carver said. “Can’t I just casually compliment your girlfriend?”

There was a silence in the living room. Castiel stared at his dad with a seriousness that made him looked eerily like Naomi.

“Not appropriate?” Carver cringed.

“Not appropriate, _at all_ ,” Castiel said, while Hael nodded gravely.

So that was the famous patriarch of the Novak clan. Not exactly what Meg had expected. By the amount of time Castiel spent complaining about the expectations that laid in his shoulders to join the family firm without pursuing his own interests, and by how strict Naomi seemed to be, Meg had imagined Castiel’s father would be a stern, serious man of the law that would be constantly immerse or talking about his job. Instead, he was this sort of goofy little man that had to stand on the tip of his toes to kiss his wife on the cheek when she came out to announce the dinner had been served.

And then there was a little bit more of awkwardness while everybody ate in reverent silence. Meg didn’t know if she was supposed to compliment someone for the pasta or if she was allowed to complain that the sauce was a little bit too salty. She kept glancing at Castiel for instructions on what to do, but Castiel didn’t seem to be getting the signals, and when she turned to Hael for help, she only received a halfhearted shrug. Apparently, prolonged silences at dinner were the norm there.

After what Meg was beginning to think she had somehow got trapped in one of those weird indie films that Sam liked so much, Carver took a sip from his glass of water and looked directly at her.

“So, Meg,” he began. “You study at Landbrooke too?”

“Yes,” Meg said. “That’s actually how I met Castiel…”

“I hope you’re not thinking about marrying him,” Carver interrupted her. “You know what they say about marriages between lawyers?”

Naomi’s eyes were like daggers directed at her husband.

“Why, I don’t know, dear,” she said, through gritted teeth. “What _do_ they say?”

Carver seemed to remember that he was, in fact, a lawyer married to another, and just took another sip of his water as if with that he could vanquish the general gaucherie.

“Is it a family thing for you as it for us?” he asked, and even before Meg had time to open up her mouth, he continued: “I’m sure Castiel has told you we have a firm. All my children have made associates there, and of course there’s a corner office waiting for Castiel too. I tried to convince Hael here to study Law as well, but she would not hear about it. She loves her music too much, and she said she wanted to become a concert performer. I had my doubts, but frankly, how can I say no to that little face?”

“You obviously can’t, Daddy,” Hael said, smiling wide. “Can I ask you something? How do you expect to get to know Meg if you won’t let her answer any of your questions?”

Castiel hid his smile by taking a sip from his glass, while Meg shot a look of utter gratitude in Hael’s direction. Carver looked properly embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, hanging his head in shame. “It’s just the first time Castiel brings a girl home, and I wanted to make a good impression, and I tend to overtalk when I’m nervous…”

“You tend to overtalk all the time, dear,” Naomi determined. “Like, right now.”

Carver promptly shut up and continued to eat his dinner, looking every bit like a puppy that had been scolded for making a mess in the carpet. Meg felt sorry for him, so she decided to pretend the lasts two minutes of conversation hadn’t happened.

“Actually, I come from a cops’ family,” she said, nonchalantly. “I’m the first one to go to college and study law.”

“She wants to be a defense lawyer,” Castiel added. “And I think she would make a standup job at it, too.”

Meg squeezed his knee underneath the table, because pushing him on the table and kissing him into oblivion would be really inappropriate behavior in front of his parents. Naomi was looking at them like she’d done just that, though.

“I’m sorry, I’m just really confused,” she confessed. “I thought you hated each other.”

Castiel put his hand on top of Meg and intertwined his fingers with hers.

“Well,” he said, with a shrug. “I guess you were wrong. A lot has happened and… it’s a long story.”

Meg was glad he left it there, because it really was.

“Oh,” said Naomi, although it was obvious she still wasn’t quite sure what was going on there. “Alright, then.”

“I think they look cute together,” Hael intervened. “Don’t you, Dad?”

“What happened to the other girl?” Carver asked. “Hester what-ser-name? The blonde one?”

Hael hit her forehead with an open palm, while Meg reminded herself that killing Castiel’s dad was not a good way to start her relationship with Castiel.

“We broke up back in February,” Castiel replied, with a poise Meg didn’t think she could have achieved.

“Oh,” said Carver. “Nobody tells me anything!”

After dessert, Castiel walked Meg downstairs while apologizing profusely.

“I am really, really sorry about them,” he said over and over while they stopped at the building’s lobby. “Dad is just… well, he’s not always aware of what comes out of his mouth.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Meg said.

“Are you sure? Because I really don’t want you to feel like you’re unwelcome in my home or that you…”

Meg stood on the tip of her toes and shut him up with a kiss.

“It’s fine,” she replied. “I really don’t think anything can ruin this moment. We’ll just… have to adapt. And so will everybody.”

Castiel’s smile was soft and generous, and he was leaning in for another kiss before he froze in horror.

“What?” Meg asked, suddenly worried, because when she’d said nothing could ruin the moment, she hadn’t counted on Castiel feeling as terrified as he looked.

“I didn’t say it back,” he answered, opening his eyes wide. “You said it, and I didn’t say it back. You were there and I just…”

“Cas, Cas,” Meg interrupted him, cupping his face with her hands. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but it doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does,” Castiel replied. “I didn’t say I love you back!”

Meg looked at him in stunned silence, as she reviewed the conversation they’d had earlier in the studio.

“Oh.”

“I ruined it,” he said, hanging his head in shame.

“No, you didn’t,” Meg consoled him. “And besides, you already said it, remember? At the lake?”

“We stroke that out,” Castiel reminded her. Meg opened her mouth to argue that it wasn’t that simple, but she remembered it wasn’t a Thursday, so she closed it again.

“Doesn’t matter,” she repeated. “I already know, but if it really means so much to you, you can say it whenever you like.”

Castiel sighed and raised his blue eyes at her.

“Can I say it now?” he asked, like a child asking for permission to go out and play.

Meg couldn’t hold back her chuckle. “If you want.”

Castiel wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her so close she could count cracks in his chapped lips when he said:

“I love you.”

“I’m sorry, I got distracted,” Meg said. “Come again?”

“I love you,” Castiel repeated, looking slightly confused.

“No,” Meg shook her head. “You’re not getting it quite right. Say it again.”

He frowned and opened his mouth, but then he noticed Meg’s amused smile. He picked her up to hold her against the wall.

“I love you,” he said once more, punctuating every word with a butterfly kiss on her neck. “Very, very, very much…”

“That’s more like it,” Meg laughed, before pulling his face up to kiss him again.


End file.
